Planes crash rattles residents around Clearwater Airpark

When it was built in 1939, the Clearwater Airpark was surrounded by orange groves and cow pastures. Fast forward more than 60 years, and today the single runway general aviation airport is surrounded tightly by neighborhood subdivisions on each side.

The airport services right around 50,000 aircraft each year, but on Sunday, one of those planes had trouble lifting off the runway, clipping a home’s roof before crashing in the backyard in a ball of flames.

No one on board the aircraft or in the home was killed, but the incident makes residents who live all around the airport nervous.

Sunday’s accident isn’t the first surrounding the Clearwater Airpark. The NTSB database shows at least 18 aviation incidents at or around the general aviation facility dating back to the 1980′s.

Pilots who use the airport say it’s a huge asset to the community and has turned out numerous pilots such as NASA astronaut Nicole Stott who attended an open house at the facility just last month.

Relatively, aviation is considered one of the safest forms of transportation, especially considering the number of car accident on roadways around Clearwater over the past 20 years.