Emergency Crews Respond To Air Alert

A search for a downed aircraft in northeast Hays County has yielded no evidence of a crash.

Austin-Bergstrom International Airport officials confirmed the transmission of an alert at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 24 from an “unknown airplane type” 18 miles south of the airport. The Hays County Office of Emergency Management enlisted the aid of the county sheriff and a STARFlight helicopter crew after discovering the possibility of an aircraft emergency near RM 1826 and Nutty Brown Road.

Kharley Smith, Hays County Emergency Management coordinator, said radar from the airport revealed the aircraft’s last location in northeast Hays County.

“The information was so obscure that the location and the type of (alert) and what type of aircraft were unknown,” Smith said. “We looked at the last known location and wide areas around the last known location on radar, but that’s not to say the plane didn’t land safely at a private airstrip.”

Jim Halbrook, information officer at the airport, said the emergency signal from the aircraft was not a “mayday” call but a common and less serious “alert.”

The airport receives alerts at least once a week, Halbrook said. Officials picked up a similar alert from another aircraft on Jan. 24 for a “stuttering engine.”

The aircraft landed safely and without incident hours before the broadcast of the second alert, he said.

“It’s not an everyday occurrence, but it’s not uncommon either,” Halbrook said. “A pilot can experience any number of things, even a strange smell in the cockpit, and once that is called in it goes out to our emergency responders.”

Airport emergency services always treat danger signals from aircraft as potential worst-case scenarios, Halbrook said.

Airport firefighting crews and other response services were prepared to meet the aircraft on the runway in the event of an emergency landing, Halbrook said.

“It’s part of a system that we have for response,” Halbrook said. “When it comes out over the scanners and pagers, it’s an ‘alert,’ and our emergency responders start coming to the airport.”

The official emergency report received by Austin-Bergstrom International Airport categorized the emergency alert as “aircraft squawking emergency,” a term Halbrook had never seen before.

The search was called off after efforts by the Hays County sheriff and STARFlight crews proved fruitless, Smith said.

Halbrook is unsure where the plane landed. He does not believe it landed at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport.

The emergency signal emitted by the plane was an automated warning and an unusual occurrence. Halbrook said many features on modern aircraft are now automated.

Smith said the emergency signal began broadcasting when the aircraft was flying near Canyon Lake. It then passed multiple airstrips where it could have made emergency landings.

Reports of an automated emergency signal and lack of radio contact with the aircraft may have led to a belief it was an unmanned drone, Smith said.

“I saw KXAN put it out that it was possibly a drone or that STARFlight led them to believe there was an unmanned aircraft,” Smith said. “I have absolutely no idea where the drone statement came from. It didn’t come from the airport. It didn’t come from Hays County. It didn’t (come from) my office.”

Smith attributes the misunderstanding to limited and ambiguous information at the time of the alert.

The type of aircraft is still unknown.

Jon Wilcox is a news reporter for the University Star where this story originally published. It is reprinted here through a news partnership between the University Star and SM Corridor News