Buena Park Mayor Wants Fullerton Airport Closed : Aviation: The second crash in two weeks renews complaints. Airport officials, pilots call it safe.

Following two private plane crashes in her city in eight days, Buena Park’s mayor said Monday she would like to see Fullerton Airport closed.

Mayor Rhonda J. McCune said that if that cannot be done, she would at least like to see takeoffs and landings over her city banned at the 65-year-old general aviation airport, which handles propeller-driven private planes and is owned by the city of Fullerton. It is a plea, McCune said, that has been made repeatedly to no avail after previous crashes.

Since 1985, there have been 20 crashes at or near Fullerton Airport, officials said, killing five people and injuring eight, all aboard the planes. Buena Park officials said 16 of those crashes have been in their city and called the risk to their residents out of proportion to any advantage.

“Fullerton gets all of the economic benefits from the airport while we get the accidents,” McCune said.

“The airport people say it was there long before any of the houses were built. So what? We almost have a totally urban environment in the area, and it has become too dangerous. They should move the airport to a rural area,” she said.

Officials at the airport, which is just inside the northwest corner of Fullerton adjacent to Buena Park, and some local pilots took issue with the mayor’s statements. They said the airport poses little threat to the neighborhood and brings many tourists and business leaders to Buena Park. They said because of wind conditions, planes must sometimes take off or land over that city.

Airport Director Roland Elder said that since it opened in 1927, no one on the ground has been injured or killed in a Fullerton Airport-related crash.

“Safety is our absolute number one priority here,” Elder said. “People think that’s luck, but it’s really not. . . . Pilots of light planes are taught from the beginning of flight school that in an incident they are to steer away from homes and schools and people. I’m not going to say that planes never go out of control, but it doesn’t happen that often.”

Fullerton Mayor Don Bankhead called McCune’s statement “an emotional response” and said closing the airport “would make as much sense as closing the I-5 freeway when there is a car accident.

“I’m concerned about everyone’s safety, but the airport is safe,” he said.

Winnie Houston, a 25-year Buena Park resident and pilot, said the airport has many benefits for her city. “In an earthquake, the airport would be used to bring supplies in and take the injured out, “ she said.

In the aftermath of Sunday’s 11 a.m. crash, pilot Albert Swafford, a 47-year-old physician, and his son Kyle, 17, both of Bakersfield, remained hospitalized at UCI Medical Center in Orange. They were arriving from Monterey, where the teen-ager attends school, to attend the Los Angeles Rams football game, officials said.

The elder Swafford, who was listed in critical condition Monday, was attempting to circle back to the airport for a second landing attempt when his twin-engine Cessna Skymaster skimmed over several houses and crashed into Handel Drive near the intersection of Schubert Circle. The plane then skidded across four lanes of Dale Street before knocking down a small concrete wall at Atlas Metal Cutting Inc.

Kyle Swafford was listed in stable condition.

George Peterson, a National Transportation Safety Board investigator, said low clouds impaired visibility somewhat in the area at the time of the crash. He said the plane’s engines were running when it went down, and the plane had sufficient fuel.

In the earlier accident this month, Jim Beebe, 25, crashed a single-engine plane moments after takeoff while attempting to make an emergency landing on the Santa Ana Freeway, just north of the Riverside Freeway interchange. The plane had developed mechanical problems and struck a van and a car containing nine people, but no one was injured.

There were once about 20 airports and airstrips in the county, but since the closing of Meadowlark Airport in Huntington Beach three years ago, Fullerton and John Wayne Airport are the only remaining non-military landing fields.

Business at Fullerton Airport peaked in 1978 when it had 253,000 takeoffs and landings. Last year, there were 180,000 takeoffs and landings at the airport.

Buena Park officials said they are concerned about several “close calls” in the past six years involving crashes in their city.

In 1990, in the last fatal accident near the airport, a pilot was killed when he crashed his plane into the Movieland Wax Museum parking lot as he was attempting to land in Fullerton. The crash occurred at 6:45 a.m., when the tourist attraction was not yet open.

In 1987, a pilot was killed when his plane crashed into a Buena Park apartment complex just after takeoff. The apartment’s residents were attending a nearby parade.

In 1986, a plane crashed in the mid-afternoon across the street from Fern Drive Elementary School, which is below the flight pattern. Children would normally have been leaving the school, but they had been sent home early that day because of parent-teacher conferences.

“God’s been smiling on us,” said Buena Park City Manager Kevin O’Rourke.

Houston said that while any accident is potentially tragic, private aviation has a good safety record. She cited an Aircraft Owners and Pilots Assn. study which found that 414 people died in private plane accidents nationwide in 1991, compared to 44,500 deaths in car accidents, 920 deaths in boating accidents and 656 train-related deaths.

“And Fullerton Airport is as safe as any airport and safer than many,” she said.