On Tuesday, June 4, a Cessna 182 with two pilots made an emergency landing in a field north of the Eagle County Regional Airport after encountering engine trouble.
The flight, which was organized through the Eagle-based flight school Alpine Flight Training, left the Eagle County Regional Airport at 5:53 p.m. on Tuesday and was due to land back at the airport at 8:33 p.m.
Instead, the plane made a “precautionary landing off-field,” in a field just north of the airport at 8:12 p.m., said Loren French, founder of and chief instructor at Alpine Flight Training.
Both pilots walked away from the landing uninjured. “They made a good landing, and there were no injuries. They walked away. And we went up there and gave them a ride back to town,” French said.
Not a crash
French said he would not describe Tuesday’s landing as a plane crash, even though the plane did not make it back to the airport as planned. “We talk a lot about plane crashes, and a lot of times a plane crash is, you end up with a plane that is not recognizable, a pile of debris, and dead bodies,” French said. “This, I would not put it in the context of a plane crash. I would call it an off-field landing. Because if you drove up there right now, you would see an airplane with two wings on it, still.”
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The plane’s journey can be found documented on Flight Aware, a website that provides data on flights throughout the aviation industry.
“(Tuesday’s flight) went up toward Steamboat (Springs), Hayden, and Craig, and it was actually on its way back,” when the engine problem occurred, French said.
“They were cruising at 11,000 feet and they encountered the engine roughness, or engine issue, and they attempted to glide back to the Eagle (County) airport, but they did not have enough altitude to guarantee that they would make it back to the runway safely, so they opted intentionally to land off-field versus trying to make it back to the airport,” French said.
The pilots followed every step of the flight school’s emergency checklist, but “it just did not remedy the problem,” French said.
Professionals from the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office, the Gypsum Fire Protection District, Eagle County Paramedic Services, and the Eagle County Regional Airport responded to the scene of the landing.
The cause of the engine issue is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board. It is standard for the two organizations to investigate any unexpected landings.
“It could have been fuel, mechanical. I don’t think it was weather. It was a pretty nice day. It was blue skies. I think it’s probably pretty safe to rule out the weather,” French said.
Alpine Flight Training staff are anticipating using the results of the investigation to make the school safer.
“We’re going to do a full review of it, especially once we get the necessary cause and information after the investigation is complete. Because everything in aviation, we use the information to make the next thing better,” French said.
“As soon as we see an issue that needs to be changed, we make the change immediately,” French said.
Alpine Flight Training
Alpine Flight Training started operating in 2011, and has trained nearly 2,500 pilots to-date, by French’s estimate.
“We train out-of-state pilots on mountain flying. We also train private pilots, instrument pilots and commercial pilots,” French said.
The school runs 10 to 15 flights per day, nearly every day of the year, barring weather. French estimated that troublesome weather eliminates about 30 flight days per year.
In 2024, Alpine Flight Training was the only flight school in Colorado to be named a Distinguished Flight School of the Western region by the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.
All flight instructors at Alpine Flight Training are Federal Aviation Administration certified, and have their private, instrument and commercial flying licenses as well as certified flight instructor certificates. Instructors at the school are also required to have experience in mountain flying.
Last week’s off-field landing was the school’s second encounter with unconventional landings in the last three years. In August 2021, a licensed pilot renting a plane from Alpine Flight Training made an emergency landing in a field in Gypsum near the Eagle County airport after running out of fuel. The pilot, who was not taking a lesson and was flying alone, walked away from the incident unharmed.
