A pilot flying a 1937 Fleet biplane made an emergency landing on the Chili Cook-off site about 6:30 p.m. Saturday, ending up about 100 to 150 feet from the Animal Hospital. No one was hurt in the incident.
The pilot, Rudy, 58, who declined to give his last name, said he had to land because the engine started vibrating. He suspected that a piston might have failed. The pilot, who took off from Van Nuys Airport about 5:30 p.m., said he was flying at about 3,000 feet and was going about 90 to 95 mph when he landed.
Witness Cary O’Neal said he was standing with a friend in front of Ralph’s market, which is across from the Cook-Off site, when his friend yelled, “That plane is going down!”
“I looked up and saw a red biplane going at least 100 mph in a steep descent,” O’Neal wrote in an e-mail to The Malibu Times. “We all expected to hear a huge explosion. It flew about 20 feet above the Coldwell Banker office at Webb Way and PCH and disappeared from our sight.”
The pilot, who said he was from South America, said he’s an experienced pilot of more than 20 years with more than 650 hours of flying time. He said he was giving his 13-year-old son a flight for his birthday.
Another witness, who is also a pilot, said the man did a “heck of a job” in landing the plane in the bumpy and pot holed field.
The pilot of the biplane said he rehabs planes as a hobby and did this one with a mechanic and has been flying it for four years. The plane had to be taken apart to be trucked from the site.
The pilot said he’s flown over Malibu many times and is always looking for emergency landing space just in case.
Arnold G. York
contributed to this story.