Plane Skids off Montauk Runway

Wed, 11/04/2020 - 18:16

A single-engine plane flown by a Pound Ridge, N.Y., pilot skidded off the runway at the Montauk Airport last week during rainy weather.

Doug Kuntz

By Christine Sampson

November 4, 2020

Rainy conditions last Thursday morning at Montauk Airport were blamed after a small plane slid off the runway, through a chain-link fence, and across East Lake Drive, ultimately crashing into a wooden fence.

The pilot, Frank T. Chiarello of Pound Ridge, N.Y., took off from Westchester County (N.Y.) Airport at around 7:45 a.m. and landed in Montauk at 8:15. He told East Hampton Town police he felt the plane skidding as he was trying to slow down. The Cirrus SR22 plane, a 2018 single-engine model, had been rented from the Performance Flight School in West Harrison, N.Y. Police did not say what damages it sustained in the accident.

Keith Grimes Inc. towed the plane back onto the runway. Town police reported the incident to the Federal Aviation Administration and the Farmingdale Flight Standards District Office.

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