A single-engine plane was unable to take off from Herrera Airport yesterday and thudded back to earth before the startled faces of the airport’s residential and commercial neighbors. Fire engines and ambulances appeared on the scene almost immediately, but were unneeded. No one was reported injured in the mishap, though the plane, whose owner was not named, suffered substantial damage. Herrera Airport, on the city’s remotest fringes when it was constructed a half century ago, is now surrounded by neighborhoods of modest single family homes and innumerable factory and showrooms. Tall vehicles zooming past on busy the busy six-lane Luperon Avenue frequently come close a brush with the landings and take-offs of the smaller craft employed by in-country flights and private pilots. Herrera Airport will be closed upon the completion of the new Higuero Airport, now under construction, several miles north of SD.
