Plane badly burnt in Hannibal airport hangar
November 30, 2011, 04:52 pm
A fire was started at Hannibal Regional Airport in Missouri when a piece of equipment used to dismantle a plane lit up a pool of fuel that had leaked out of a single-engine plane. The fire damaged the small plane but did not injure any people in the hangar. Pilot insurance can help relieve financial burden of policyholders in the event of such accidents.
The Hannibal Courier Post reported that the fire was quickly noticed by an operator at the airport and extinguished. The sides of the Cessna 172 were darkened from the flames, but nothing else in the hangar was damaged. The plane was being taken apart after strong winds destroyed the aircraft back in March. Workers said the plane was supposed to have no fuel left in the tank, but a small amount remained and set on fire.
Hannibal Fire Chief Bill Madore told Quincy Herald-Whig that the crew called 911 and had to use numerous fire extinguishers to put the fire out before the firefighters arrived.
In an interview with the Hannibal Courier Post, Hannibal Fire Department Captain Mark Van Winkle said Mike Barron, the airport manager, was using a hand-cut saw to chop up the plane and accidentally sent a spark into some fuel.
"We dispatched all the (fire) trucks," Van Winkle told the source. "Just before we got out here they said the crew here at the airport had extinguished the fire with their own personal fire extinguishers."
Robin Carroll, the airport operator who first spotted the fire, told the news source that the airport crew's response to the fire was very fast.
"They had fire extinguishers in their hands before I got there," Carroll told the source.
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