Oxford, Massachusetts – January 14, 2002
On January 14, 2002, a lone pilot took off from the Lawrence (Ma.) Municipal Airport in a rented Piper Cherokee bound for the Southbridge (Ma.) Municipal Airport. While in route he became lost, and mistook the airport in Oxford, Mass., to be his destination.
The Oxford Airport runway was reported to be 2,000 feet long; 1,500 feet shorter that the runway at Southbridge. As the pilot landed at Oxford, he came to realize he didn’t have enough room to stop, so he tried to abort the landing, but the plane’s landing gear clipped some trees at the end of the runway causing it to crash up-side-down 500 feet into the woods. The aircraft was severely damaged but the pilot suffered only minor injuries.
Source:
The Webster Times, (Ma.), “Small Plane Crash Case Of Mistaken Identity”, January 16, 2002.
