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Nails on the runway (and other crazy things) - aircraft haters at their worst

Last weekend, the military airshow “Airpower” was once again held at Zeltweg airbase (LOXZ) and was a roaring success with an estimated 300.000 visitors. The operators of Leoben-Timmersdorf aerodrome (LOGT), a small grass airfield about 30 kilometres away, catered especially to GA pilots who visited the show with their own aircraft.

A nice idea that obviously wasn’t universally welcomed: Somebody put nails into boards and hid them on the runway! They were even dug into the soil in order to be especially hard to notice! By sheer luck, they were found by a member of the aerclub who was cutting the grass.

German language article here.

This seems to be too much effort for some drunken teenagers who got bored vandalizing the local bus stops. More a case of extreme NIMBY-ism and aircraft hate, if you ask me. The perpetrators were fully accepting the risk of a serious or, in the worst case, deadly accident. How low can some people go?

Last Edited by blueline at 05 Sep 10:44
LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

That’s just awful. I assume that you have filed a report to the police and the Swiss CAA. This is a very serious crime, just as with laser attacks on pilots.
Can you see the past in the local airport webcam?

ESSZ, Sweden

@ Fly310: It happened in Austria and I was not personally affected – only heard it through the grapevine and media. I do hope that they get these ****.

LOAN Wiener Neustadt Ost, Austria

Ok, sorry about the mixup. I hope that they find and prosecute them.

ESSZ, Sweden

Not that much better here… ok, so far they would not really try predetermined murder (even though we’ve had a shooting incident a few years back) but not too long ago a hangar on a disputed airfield inexplicably burnt down…

Hope the Austrian police will get those morons.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

This just happened in the UK. A farmer stacking up hay at the end of somebody’s runway

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

In Germany this would be a felony (§ 315 BGB:
Gefährliche Eingriffe in den Bahn-, Schiffs- und Luftverkehr), worth at least six months (up to 10 years) in prison.

Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

Here in the UK, if the airport is unlicensed, nothing can be done. If it is licensed, the CAA can get involved.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

There are crazy people out there. Looking for pictures of my plane on Flicker, I ran into this one which was strange because the title said “Viol N41518” which means “Rape N41518” instead of “Vol N41518” (“Flight N41518”). Looking at other pictures from the same person, she’s been tracking all the flights near her house and accusing the pilots of committing “feminicide” (a fashionable term at the moment). She lives near an airbase :-/

Also that’s not even my plane! She got the reg from Flightradar24 but I was at FL200 when abeam her place.

Last Edited by denopa at 10 Aug 10:13
EGTF, LFTF

Peter wrote:

Here in the UK, if the airport is unlicensed, nothing can be done

Yes not much you can do for unlicensed airports (this does come around when a tall building is built around the flight path), for farmer straw & hay bales at the moment nothing prevents you from moving the lot for takeoff before moving it back , actually, local authorities likes to see these moved out of their places regularly, mainly to check what is hidden under but obviously you don’t want to piss off a farmer

https://www.publiclawtoday.co.uk/planning/318-planning-features/1019-council-wins-high-court-case-over-castle-hidden-by-bales-of-straw

Paris/Essex, France/UK, United Kingdom
19 Posts
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