No injuries in Sunday night plane crash

GILFORD — There were no injuries after a small plane crashed at Laconia Municipal Airport Sunday night. A red SRL Savannah was making its landing just before 8:40 p.m. when the pilot lost control and crashed. 

“The air currents, when you're landing on a light touchdown, it's not unusual for a small plane to go airborne briefly,” explained airport manager Marv Everson of the "flare," which was the event that led to the crash. “It's almost a bounce but not in the sense of a touchdown. It's a kiss, a light flare, and it sets down again in the midst of that flare. It turned sideways, and airplane landing gear is not made to go sideways.”

The landing gear buckled, and sent the ultralight, high-winged plane off the runway and into the grass. Police arrived early on the scene, and by 8:40 p.m., the fire department was dispatched to provide further assistance.

“Crews were informed a plane ran off runway 26,” said Gilford Fire Chief Steve Carrier. “They arrived and found the patient being assisted out of the aircraft by the PD. The patient was assessed and refused transport.”

Everson couldn’t release many details regarding the specifics of the crash or the pilot’s identity. On scene, The Sun saw the plane transported off the runway by a trailer pulled by a minivan. The wing had been removed, and the cockpit appeared to be smashed in from the front. 

The aircraft is registered to Craig Williamson.

There have been at least three incidents at the airport in the past two years. In December 2021, an amphibious plane had to make a rough but successful landing after its landing gear froze. In November 2022, another aircraft experienced a crash after clipping a building at the corner of Lake Shore and Weirs roads during an early-evening landing approach. A year to the day before that, another plane crashed while making an approach after clipping the treeline. The culprit for the two latter incidents was likely Daylight Savings Time, because due to the position of the sun, the pilots were partially blinded during their approach.

“It's a very busy airport for that size, I guess it just comes with the territory,” Carrier said. “You put that many planes coming and going, there's a greater chance for incidents like that to happen.”

According to Everson, the airport hosts a whopping 80 to 100 operations per day in the summer.

“That’s landings and takeoffs,” Everson explained. “We’re high volume for a regional general aviation airport. Particularly in the summer we get the busiest, and yesterday was a gorgeous day finally, so there was quite a bit of traffic.” 

Everson said the airport was “handling it all right for now,” but added that if the area continues to grow in traffic, the airport will need to address expanded operational capacity and staffing. 

Everson said that following the crash, the FAA will inspect the plane and the pilot’s logbooks before issuing a report. 

“It does take quite a while. Usually by then you've forgot about it,” Everson joked. “I don’t know if they do that on purpose or not.”