Comments about Univ of Illinois Willard Airport

Hmmm should have looked that up first ... I was in japan when that incident happened, 1998, and only heard the news second-hand. I note that several sources say the Air Force One that got stuck was a 707 not a 747. The president (Clinton) was carried away by a back-up aircraft, AF 26000, the same 707 that carried Kennedy to Dallas and his body home to Washington ... making Clinton the last sitting president ever to board that historic aircraft. Interesting.

Flew in here several times when I was stationed at Chanute AFB and flew with the Aero Club there. A nice field for training, all mod cons and little traffic. Will go down in history as one of the few places Air Force One ever had a reportable incident ... they cut a turn too short one day and ran one of AF One's bogeys into the black Illinois mud ... the president was transported by other means and the 747 was freed the next day. Since it was a military aircraft and the military, in the interest of national security (or is that the protection of pilot's from embarrassment) restricts all accident reports, even those from many years ago from public access. It's a shame the today's pilots can learn from the lessons of all commercial and private accidents, but can't learn from the findings of Air Force accidents ... which are very well investigated, by the way. Sad.