Harrison Ford May Lose Pilot’s License over John Wayne Airport Incident

Airport cameras captured Harrison Ford's aircraft overflying an American Airlines passenger jet at Orange County's John Wayne Airport.
Airport cameras captured Harrison Ford’s aircraft overflying an American Airlines passenger jet at Orange County’s John Wayne Airport.

Actor Harrison Ford, of Star Wars fame, is in danger of losing his pilot’s license after a flight mishap at the John Wayne Airport in Orange County that occurred on February 13th, say experts.

The day before Valentine’s Day, Ford flew dangerously close to an American Airlines passenger 737 carrying 110 passengers and a six-person crew, before mistakenly landing on the airport’s taxiway.

After flying over the jetliner that was taxiing for departure to Dallas, Ford contacted the control tower and asked “”Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?” The AA pilots immediately reported the incident to FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.

Ford seemed dioriented when talking to the tower prior to the incident, it was reported that he fumbled words and told the tower that he was flying a helicopter rather than the single-engine Husky he was actually piloting.

Ford had been given landing instructions, and had read them back to controllers, the FAA told reporters. The FAA is reviewing the incident, and Ford is may lose his pilot’s license for his mistake.

Ford has been in several aircraft incidents in recent years, most memorably, a crash onto a golf course in Santa Monica in 2015, after the engine in his world war II airplane. Witnesses to that incident said that Ford had probably saved many lives by steering his dead aircraft to the golf course. Ford suffered a broken arm and injuries to his scalp in that crash.

During a flight lesson in 1999, Ford crash-landed a helicopter in Ventura County, then a year later, Ford caused minor damage to a six-seater Beechcraft during an emergency landing at the Lincoln Municipal Airport in Nebraska.

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Despite his mishaps in the air, Ford is considered an excellent pilot and has been inducted in the Kitty Hawk Air Academy.[xyz-ihs snippet=”Adsense-responsive”]