Hey guys. So I am looking for some stories of some cool/interesting/unusual runway obstructions that one might encounter on your backcountry adventures. I am guessing the odd dear is seen on the runway or someone parked their digger too close for comfort but have you heard any strange or funny encounters?

Had to buzz the runway at Prairie (2U0) several years ago to chase off at least 20 cows. In 1984 I was walking on lower table rock at Medford OR when a plane wanted to land on the runway, there were about 15 people walking on it at the time so he buzzed the runway at about 50 feet. Everyone moved off the runway except 1 person who flipped him off and stayed in the center of the strip, the plane came back and landed anyway and chased him off the runway.

Not mine but really cool!

https://youtu.be/HHoepzVJxps

I had to "land and hold short" for an alligator at Dade Collier, KTNT in central Florida. He wasn't moving and no one volunteered too stepped up to assist !!!!

Had a flock of Ptarmagin that prevented takeoff.
Had a mating Boar and Sow Brown bear that were too involved to clear a strip I wanted to land on.
Had two planes meet on the runway as I came into the pattern. No fatalities but closed the runway.

We have a couple of airports in Northern Quebec where they recommend a runway inspection prior to landing in their airport information document.

Mapleflt wrote:We have a couple of airports in Northern Quebec where they recommend a runway inspection prior to landing in their airport information document.

If they're talking ab out eyeballing the runway from above,
I think that's a pretty good idea no matter where you're landing--
esp at a non-towered and/or unattended airport.

Don't know if this counts but I was arriving into Brandon Manitoba once and suddenly there was a massive fireball and plume of black smoke alongside the runway. Figured the worst and prepared to divert elsewhere. Turns out it was a regular fire-training exercise, but amazingly there was no mention of it in the supplement, the ATIS or from the field controllers. Just business as usual.

Another time flew commercial to Midway Atoll where prior to each arrival they drive a truck up and down the runway to shoo away hundreds to thousands of Laysan Albatross.

Closer to home we were climbing/ skiing on the Pika glacier in the Alaska Range and had a pick-up arranged with Jay Hudson. The 4' of fresh powder snow was more than Jay had bargained for, and despite our packing a runway his 185 got pretty buried. Once freed (that's a story in itself), Jay elected to take off empty and come back for us the following day. Paul Roderick laid some tracks for him, and then flew cover, telling Jay where the crevasses were so Jay could slalom around them on his lengthy down-glacier takeoff run. (Jay used to be one of the go-to guys for slinging airplanes in crevasses, so it could have been extra problematic if he'd been the one in need of slinging.)

-DP

I have one for the three events theory leading to an incident or accident. I arrived at Flagstaff where a 172 was on its back on the only runway. The tower denied (red light) my request to land on the taxiway or the runway remaining beyond. I made it halfway to Williams before the engine started cutting out. I landed on frontage road beside a Navajo Pipeline pumping station. Turns out the tower controller at Flagstaff was on the can and the trainee was afraid to approve my landing on the taxiway. He would have given me the green light.

The other two events were picking up a passenger at Alamosa, Colorado because Continental Express wouldn't land if the temperature was above 80, and my receiver going out while talking with Winslow FSS. The passenger changed my destination from Gallup to Flagstaff.

About a dozen Canada geese next to the runway that decided to take off and fly across the runway in front of me just as I had rotated. Not much choice, so I kept it in ground effect and flew beneath them. I was just lucky none of them decided to seek the safety of earth as I passed beneath.

Cows, chicken, horses, soccer games, pregnant women, lovers, geese, dogs and an intencional airplane placed so no one else lands (on a public strip).

I guess the most annoying "obstacle" in recent memory was an RV something that landed ahead of me on 36 at OSH and ignored Tower's repeated instructions to exit the runway onto the grass, instead taxiing to the first taxiway. With all 40 hanging out and slowed and trimmed for the expected landing, and carrying a gross load minus the fuel burn from Dubuque, the sudden go around was annoying at best.

Otherwise, I've had people sauntering across the runway at Marble, CO; antelope at Pinedale, WY; and a fire truck at Fort Collins/Loveland; probably others that I can't recall now.

Cary

On a capture operation for Dall Sheep in the White Mountains north of Fairbanks. BLM has a campground on the south side of the mountains, so I had a crew spot several barrels of avgas there for my Husky and the R-44 helicopter we were using. Late fall, so campground was closed, and at the very end of a VERY Long and not maintained road.

On day two, had a sheep down so good time to top off. Went to the fuel site, and there was a huge motor home parked, not in one of the camp spaces, but right on my Airport. Shit! So, I landed over top of him, so that if I overshot, I’d be in brush, not a bumper sticker for that hog. Gassed up and asked the gent if he’d be kind enough to move his monster into one of the actual camp spaces so I could use all the “runway”.

He was fascinated with what we were dipping, moved his monster off the road and talked the ear off our helicopter pilot when he landed for fuel.

Other than that, a hudred or so elk on the runway at Gardiner. Called them Airport Security....no interest in moving for me.

MTV

My most "interesting" runway obstruction was a buzzard that landed right in the middle of the runway at Caddo Mills just before I tried to land there in my Grumman Traveler. There was nothing on the runway for him to snack on – he apparently just decided it was time to land. I flew right by him, to one side of the runway, hoping it would scare him off. Nope – just sat there, totally ignoring me. I gave up and went to another airport.

niente qui

A desperately inebriated pilot at JC running at the plane on the runway as I was starting my evening take off roll. Moose, elk, horses, gophers, vultures, kids- those are pretty easy calls in the scheme of things. A visibly disturbed swaggering drunk guy running at full tilt- total mystery.

Bear and cubs. Bald eagles. The occasional turkey vulture. Too many deer to count.

I wasn't going to post thinking they are pretty run-of-the-mill hazards but when Dogpilot wrote about Ostrich and Warthogs I realized ordinary really depends on where you live.

Bears, birds and deer are as common as inflow winds around here.

Wow, many great responses here. Thank you all for sharing.

It really is an interesting dynamic of backcountry flying.

This wasn’t in the back country, but there’s an airport in central NC where it isn’t uncommon to see a tractor rolling down the runway from one field to another.

I just want to say that reading this has made me appreciate deer. At least they are terrified of airplanes.