Excursion Recovery Goes Wrong At Aspen

The owner of a Falcon 900 probably thought the worst thing that could happen on April 2 was a runway excursion at Aspen Pitkin Airport, but he or she would have been wrong. The bad day got worse when, in an attempt to clear the only runway, the nosegear was torn off the top-of-the-line business jet. Whoever was in charge of the recovery effort brought in a large snowplow to try to tow it out with a line attached to the nosegear. The airplane appears to have been mired in soft ground at the side of Runway 15/33. After a couple of attempts, the nosegear gave and the nose fell to the ground.

The plane was on a flight from Boca Raton and landed at Aspen in the middle of a busy Sunday afternoon. There were no injuries when it left the runway but the resulting closure of the runway affected numerous commercial and private flights with people trying to get home after their weekend mountain getaway. The big 12-seat tri-jet is owned by JDR Management, of Boca Raton.