Aerobatic pilot Sean Tucker has issued a statement concerning his off-airport landing Sunday evening. Tucker was flying a photo shoot near his King City, Calif., home base around 7 p.m. when his engine hiccuped and he realized that if it quit altogether, he couldn’t stretch a glide back to the airport. With a long empty stretch of Highway 101 nearby, he decided to get the airplane on the ground and check it out. “We did not put a scratch on the airplane and did not jeopardize any vehicles,” Tucker said in a statement on Wednesday. “It was a precautionary landing because of a malfunction in the fuel computer.” Tucker’s crew came and checked out the airplane, and the highway police stopped traffic so he could take off and fly home. Earlier reports by a California television station quoted Tucker as telling California Highway Patrol officers that he had run out of fuel and that fuel was added to the aircraft before taking off. Tucker did not respond to AVweb‘s request for clarification of the television report.
Tucker flies a custom-built biplane in airshows across the country, and last year was named to the National Aviation Hall of Fame. He also operates the Tutima Academy of Aviation Safety in King City.
