Warbird Information Exchange

CLEVELAND -- A Polish jet trainer crashed landed at Burke Lakefront Airport early Friday evening.


The pilot of a TS-11 Iskra made a belly-landing around 6 p.m. after the jet's main landing gear failed to deploy.

The pilot, Michael Hoyle, 59, of Chagrin Falls was uninjured. The jet is based at the airport and was a scheduled act at the Cleveland National Air Show.

Euclid resident Alex Burrell was filming a different jet performing flybys at the airport he realized that there was an emergency.

"The control tower asked if (F-18 pilot) could join the Polish jet to confirm if his landing gear wasn't down," Burrell said. "When he confirmed it, the Polish plane made a couple of more passes. On the last one, he just put it right down on it's belly."

The jet skidded for several hundred feet before it stopped on the runway.

Ed Hollo, who pilots single engine aircraft, witnessed the crash landing.

"(The pilot) did everything right from where I was sitting," said Hollo. "He brought it in real shallow, real slow, real low and touched it down lightly. And there weren't even any sparks. So it was a good landing."

The airport was closed while crews worked to remove the plane from the main runway.

Burke Lakefront Airport Commissioner Khalid Bahhur said the crash will not affect the Cleveland National Air Show, which is scheduled to start Saturday.

Commissioner Bahhur said that Hoyle, the pilot of the Polish jet trainer aircraft, has performed in previous air shows in Cleveland.

"He's a 30 to 40-year veteran in aviation," Bahhur said of Hoyle. "It's his hobby. So he loves the thing and performs in the air show."

There was minor damage to the jet's engine cowling and the left wing.