Stearman Mishap Temporarily Shuts Down Washington National Airport

June 8, 2010
By AOPA ePublishing staff

It was supposed to be a day celebrating legends of aviation at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., complete with a promotional fly-in of eight Stearman into {Washington National Airport}. General aviation aircraft operations have been extremely limited at the airport since 9/11. After landing, the Stearman came to rest on its back one-quarter of the way down the 6,869-foot-long Runway 1.

Behind the Stearman roll-over

By now, millions of people around the world have seen the ghastly video images of the gorgeous Stearman biplane flipping over onto its back at Washington’s {National Airport}. Still, there are a couple of bright spots that no one who sees the infamous video should miss. AOPA Pilot Senior Editor was a passenger in the seventh airplane in the promotional flight. Read his blog >>

The pilot, Mike Treschel, of the Flying Circus Aerodrome in Warrenton, Va., and passenger Ashley Halsey, transportation reporter for the Washington Post, were not injured in the accident. Air traffic controllers immediately closed the runway and switched all arriving and departing airline traffic to the shorter 5,204-foot-long Runway 33, forcing the inbound airliners to make a shortfield approach. Two hours after the 10 a.m. incident, a crane had lifted the yellow biplane and turned it upright before it was moved from the runway.

{snip}

Raw Video: Vintage Plane Flips at DC Airport
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Associated Press
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Film producer Pietro Serapiglia says the aircraft was part of a group of vintage biplanes flying in Tuesday morning to promote the opening of 3-D film "Legends of Flight." Serapiglia says the plane landed, but then flipped over. (June 8)

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