JACKSON HOLE, WYO – Harrison Ford has had his share of close calls while piloting his private plane collection. The Hollywood celebrity who makes his home in Jackson Hole once helped out on a Teton County Search and Rescue mission by flying dehydrated hiker Sarah George off of Table Mountain in his Bell 407 helicopter on July 31, 2000. More recently, Ford has had two mishaps—the latest, a near-miss of an American Airlines Boeing 737 carrying 110 passengers.
The latest incident occurred on February 13, 2017, at John Wayne Airport in Orange County, California. As Ford brought his single-engine Husky in for a landing he was instructed to set down on runway 20-L. Instead, Ford landed on a taxiway, narrowly missing a commercial flight that was waiting to take off.
“Was that airliner meant to be underneath me?’ he asked air control. Later, in an audio file released this week by the FAA, Ford is heard admitting, “I’m the schmuck who landed on the taxiway.”
The actor told tower communicators he was distracted by turbulence created by another nearby aircraft.
On March 5, 2015, Ford crash-landed his World War II-era airplane after the engine failed. The set the aircraft down hard on a Santa Monica golf course. The actor suffered head injuries and a broken arm.
Ford also crashed in a Bell 206 helicopter while training with an instructor on October 23, 1999. Less than a year later, his Beechcraft Bonanza was blown off a runway in Lincoln, Nebraska on June 18, 2000.
