Pilot Faces Penalty for Confusing Airports

Federal Aviation Administration investigators have recommended a 45-day license suspension for the pilot who nearly landed a DC-9 jetliner on a small San Fernando Valley airstrip in December after mistaking it for nearby Burbank Airport.

The pilot, identified for the first time Monday as Paul Charles Haynie of Long Beach, has told the FAA that he intends to ask a hearing to contest multiple charges of careless flying in connection with the incident at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima, FAA spokesman Russell Park said.

In a March 13 notice of proposed action released Monday, FAA Regional Counsel DeWitte T. Lawson Jr. informed the Continental Airlines’ pilot that he had been found in violation of FAA regulations by operating an aircraft so carelessly as to endanger life and property, deviating from an air-traffic-control clearance, flying too low over a congested area and failing to exercise “the degree of care, judgment and responsibility” required of a commercial airline pilot.

‘Full of Errors’

Reached by The Times at his Long Beach home, Haynie declined comment on the FAA action except to say that the letter sent to him was “full of errors.”

If he is turned down at the FAA hearing, Haynie can appeal to the National Transportation Safety Board, Park said.

A spokesman for Continental Airlines said the company retains confidence in Haynie, who, he said, has more than 24,000 hours of flying experience.

“At this point there is no conclusive finding, only a proposal that is subject to change based on information provided by the pilot in the process,” said Continental spokesman David Messing.

“Our guy is still flying and there is no reason to think he won’t be in the future,” Messing said. “Obviously, if we had concern with one of our pilots, he wouldn’t be a pilot.”

The FAA notice said that Haynie, piloting Flight 475 from Denver the evening of Dec. 12, brought the McDonnell-Douglas DC-9 to within 400 to 600 feet of touchdown at the Pacoima airfield while on approach to Burbank Airport, about 3.8 miles to the south.

The report said that, as Haynie’s Flight 475 left the Edwards Approach Control Center in Antelope Valley, the Burbank Control Tower instructed him to prepare for an instrument approach.

Asked for Visual Approach

But Haynie, it said, requested visual approach and reported the airport in sight when he was about 11 miles to the northwest.

Haynie’s descent path caused a minimum safe altitude warning system to alert at 6:45 p.m., when he was still nine miles northwest of the Burbank Airport, the report said.

When told of this, the report said, Haynie “advised that he had the terrain in sight,” then, two minutes later, asked the Burbank Tower to “turn the runway lights up.”

The tower then advised Haynie that Burbank Airport was “10 o’clock, six miles,” and Whiteman “one o’clock, one mile,” the report said. Haynie acknowledged, it said.

A minute later, Haynie asked if he was lined up at the right runway and was told he was lined up at Whiteman Airport, the report said.

Runway Too Short

Spokesmen for Whiteman and McDonnell Douglas Corp. said that, not only is Whiteman’s runway probably too short and too narrow to land such a large plane, but that the aircraft weighs at least eight times as much as Whiteman’s pavement was designed to support.

They feared the landing gear could have plowed through the asphalt and snapped off, throwing the jetliner out of control alongside busy San Fernando Road.

Whiteman, used mostly by privately owned, single-engine propeller planes, has no control tower and is the only airport in the Valley where pilots land and take off by eyesight alone.

A similar incident occurred last May when a United Air Lines 747 from Honolulu, bound for Los Angeles International Airport, began making a landing approach to Hawthorne Airport, 2 1/2 miles away, but pulled up after descending to between 500 and 1,100 feet.