Emergency at Gillette-Campbell County Airport

At approximately 11:48 a.m. a Cessna 210 made a gear-up landing at the Gillette-Campbell County airport.  The pilot and passenger were uninjured.  The control tower through the airport’s emergency alert system, notified the Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) personnel and 911.  ARFF personnel responded and were on scene at 12:01.  County fire, EMS, SO and county emergency management responded to the airport.  The air traffic control tower closed runway Three-Four.  After closing the runway at 12:04, the control tower continued through their checklist and notified Denver Air Route Traffic Control Center.  United Airlines was in its decent to GCC airport when Denver ARTCC notified United Airlines that the runway was closed.  United called the GCC airport control tower on tower frequency and verified that runway three-four was indeed closed.  The GCC tower answered in the affirmative, and United requested a clearance to divert to Denver.  United was given a clearance back to Denver.

Flight LFS the airport’s Fixed Based Operator (FBO) was notified by the airport director that there was a disabled airplane on the runway and asked for their assistance.  Aircraft mechanics responded and the airport operations manager dismissed the other mutual aid responders. Once the mechanics had the airplane’s landing gear back down it was towed to the FBO apron.  At 1:04 the airport director directed the control tower to reopen 34 runway.

The airport director understands the original United Airlines flight has been rescheduled to arrive at the GCC airport at 3:36 p.m. and depart GCC airport at 4:00 p.m. this afternoon  Airport director Jay Lundell thanks the emergency crews for their quick response and admires the professionalism shown by all responders and those assisting in the aircraft incident (I want to clarify this is classified as an aircraft incident, and not an accident).