A single-engine plane’s wing suffered a hole-in-one Monday during an emergency landing at a Long Island golf course, officials said.
The Cessna 172 was heading to MacArthur Airport when the pilot radioed that he was experiencing engine failure about 6:15 a.m., Suffolk County cops said.
A small plane made an emergency landing at a Long Island golf course on Monday.Victoralcorn.comHe was told he could land at the nearby Bayport Aerodrome “after he declared emergency 7 miles southeast of Islip [MacArthur Airport] — his intended destination,” the Federal Aviation Administration said.
But he decided to put the plane down at the Bellport Country Club at 20 S. Country Road, where its right wing clipped a tree, cops said.
The pilot refused medical attention and no one on the ground was injured.
Golf course maintenance worker Aaron Leibowitz told Newsday that he and a co-worker were cutting the fairway greens when they saw the plane approach.
“We start here at 5:30 a.m. but the course isn’t open until around 8,” Leibowitz said. “We were cutting the fairways and saw the plane coming in. He (the pilot) tried to land on the 16th fairway but he couldn’t so he tried to make a sharp right to avoid a building and landed right off the 12th green on the right side.”
The building is a small one-story structure that is used for storing equipment, he said.
MacArthur Airport Commissioner Shelley LaRose-Arken said the pilot contacted the control tower at MacArthur to report “engine problems,” the paper reported.
The pilot was the sole occupant aboard the 1973 high-wing four-seater, LaRose-Arken said.
The plane is registered to YWP Air Inc. with an owner listed in Bayport, according to FAA records.


