![The author says what should have been a routine landing turned into an unforgettable encounter. [Illustration: Joel Kimmel]](https://flyingmag1.b-cdn.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2026/01/FLY0126_1.4-ILAFFT-e1770211192182.jpeg?width=1226&height=843)
My background in aviation started when I was quite young, and my dad took me up in his new-to-him Cessna 150.
My dad and I didn’t connect on many things throughout my childhood, but I’ll always remember that first flight with him when it was just us, and he showed me the basics of flying an airplane. He’d point things out on the ground, but I couldn’t recognize them from the air. It didn’t matter though, because I was flying.
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After joining the Navy at the age of 18, I started flying lessons while at Naval Air Station Lemoore in California and later earned my private pilot certificate while stationed on the USS Constellation out of North Island in San Diego. Over the years I flew whenever my family and work life permitted, and in 2024, I found myself the proud—if not somewhat intimidated—owner of a 1953 Beechcraft D-35 Bonanza—my new commuter between New York and Maryland.
That brings me to the day when what should have been a routine landing turned into an unforgettable encounter.
On a Sunday in June 2025, I was on my third or fourth commuting flight from Cooperstown, New York (K23), to Harford County, Maryland (0W3). It was a beautiful day for flying.
I had my iPad up with ForeFlight for navigation, and I was also using ForeFlight on my iPhone. I wasn’t yet truly comfortable with the airplane (or myself) and was using my iPhone to review everything from checklists and emergency procedures to panning around and playing the game of, “if my engine quit now, where would I land?”
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After doing this for a while, I received a 20 percent low battery notice and then a 10 percent low battery notice on my iPhone. With that, I plugged my cell into the charger, threw it on the passenger seat, and continued the flight using my iPad.
The descent into Harford County was perfect, and my pattern and approach to Runway 19 was good. I heard the gentle chirp-chirp-chirp of my tires, but just when I was about to mentally praise myself for a smooth landing…bam!
The airplane swiftly veered to the right. The bam happened so quickly after touching down that I thought my right main gear had collapsed. My reflexes had me correcting to get back on the centerline. To my surprise, the airplane responded.
“Well,” I thought, “the main gear is still there, but what the heck was that?” My first thought was bird strike, but it couldn’t be that. It was way too loud, and a bird wouldn’t make me veer like that. Then I looked out my right window, saw the mangled right wing, and thought, “deer.”
Harford County is in a rural area north of Baltimore and is a nontowered airport in Class G airspaces beneath Class E airspace. I taxied to the ramp, grabbed my phone off the charge cord, texted my wife “landed,” and quickly jumped out to assess the impact.
From the damage I knew there had to be considerable FOD on the runway. I looked back at the runway and saw a large hump just off centerline about a quarter mile away. I grabbed the hand-held VHF radio off my vest and made a broadcast on the CTAF that the airfield was closed due to a fouled runway.
(On the premise that survival gear is on the person and camping gear is in the bag in the back seat, I’d previously purchased a lightweight fishing vest to wear on my cross-country flights, which I then packed with the essentials—radio, signaling mirror, whistle, beacon, flashlight, matches, first-aid kit, etc.)
As I quickly walked toward the impact area, I wanted to call my wife to quickly let her know what happened and that I was OK. As I called her, I noticed my phone was at 2 percent charge. When she answered, I quickly said, “Huff, huff, huff…honey…huff, huff, huff…I’m OK, but the airplane is pretty messed up because I hit a deer on the runway when landing. Huff, huff, huff…My battery is about to die, and I need to call the airport manager and the NTSB, so I have to let you go and will call you back ASAP.”
All she could say was, “Uhhh….OK….Call me when you can.”
Next, was the call to the airport manager, but I didn’t have his number in my phone, and my phone didn’t have enough juice to search for it. So, I called my local flying buddy.
“Chuck! Huff, huff, huff. I just landed at 0W3 and hit a deer on the runway. Can you call Kevin (the airport manager) and let him know? I don’t have his number.”
Chuck said that he would and that he was on his way. About that time, I got to the scene of impact. I took two pictures, and my phone died. About 20 minutes later, Chuck showed up and we continued the process of taking pictures with his phone to document what had happened. We performed a FOD walk-down of the runway to include removing the deer. The deer impacted the wing between the right main landing gear and the wing root.
Post-assessment of the aircraft indicates the deer was thrown up over the fuselage (because it broke one of the VHF antennas on top of the fuselage) and then came down on the other side of the aircraft, missing the tail and any other aircraft structure. The deer must have been running at full speed because I never saw it on or near the runway during my approach, and its momentum carried it over the fuselage following impact, and it missed the propeller.
So here’s what I Learned About Flying From That:
• There were a few holes in the Swiss cheese that lined up for this accident. First, it was a semirural airport in an area where the deer population was known to be dense. Second, there’s no fencing around the airfield to dissuade the deer population. Third, I touched down at dusk—8:14 p.m. if memory serves me—when deer are the most active.
• When flying into areas prone to wildlife, expand your scan beyond the runway throughout the entire traffic pattern. On short final, one tends to focus on the runway to ensure centerline, glide path, and speed are correct, and it’s hard to divert one’s attention when nearing the flare—but try to. There’s even more reason to start the airfield scan during the downwind leg. If there is no other aircraft in the pattern, perhaps perform a low approach to both scan for wildlife as well as hopefully scare them off.
• Fly the airplane all the way to the chocks. I had just started to relax when the impact occurred. I don’t know that my relaxation had any bearing on my accident. But had I let my guard down, and had the deer been another 50 yards down the runway, a relaxed me might not have seen it, whereas an alert me might have.
• Never put off until tomorrow what can be done today. I knew my iPhone had a sensitive charge port that didn’t always work. When I plugged in the charge cord during my flight, I just assumed it was charging. It obviously was not, which limited my options after the accident. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been in my situation because I was at an airfield. However, had this been an off-airport landing in a field or into trees, a fully charged phone could prove most beneficial.
• Have the phone numbers for key personnel at rural airports programmed into your phone. Once an incident or accident has occurred, it is not the time to be fumbling through your EFB of an airport/facility directory to locate a phone number.
• Be sure to have your current aircraft insurance policy information. When I got home, I pulled up my insurance policy online, called the company to leave a voicemail about the accident. I included my policy number based on what I had just reviewed online.
The next day, my insurance company called and informed me that I didn’t have in-flight coverage. It turns out that when I put the airplane back into in-flight status several months prior, I had to cancel my existing policy and start a new one due to oddities with my then-current policy. When the new policy was put into place, I printed it and placed it in the airplane. I assumed that the one policy that came up when I checked it online was my current policy, but that wasn’t the case.
For some odd reason my online account showed my old policy that didn’t include in-flight coverage. We worked things out in a matter of minutes, but I was really sweating bullets when I was first told that my insurance policy wasn’t going to cover the accident. So, be sure both what you print and what you see online are yourcurrent insurance policy.
This column first appeared in the January Issue 966 of the FLYING print edition.
