Plane makes emergency landing in Vina airfield

An experimental aircraft had to make an emergency landing at the old army auxiliary airfield east of Vina on Monday.

The Chico pilot, Calvin Randolph Richardson, 61, was flying the aircraft between Highway 99E and the Sierra Nevada foothills near the CalFire Helitach when he began to experience a loss of power around 9:30 a.m., reported the Tehama County Sheriff's Department.

Richardson was making the emergency landing on the old airfield when his aircraft clipped a barbed-wire fence along the north edge of the airstrip, said the Sheriff's Office.

The pilot was able to successfully make the landing with a flat nose wheel and minor damage to the aircraft, deputies said.

Richardson was not injured in the incident.