Creswell skydiving to resume.

Byline: Karen McCowan The Register-Guard

CRESWELL - A week after a warning from the Federal Aviation Administration iced two Creswell-based skydive operations in the middle of their hottest season, the owner of one company said he will be back in business today after securing a new parachute drop zone off airport property.

"We'll be open and operating on a field that's walking distance from the airport," David Wright, owner of Wright Brothers Skydiving, said Tuesday.

Wright declined to specify where the land is or who owns it. But he said the agreement is temporary, while he seeks to strike a new deal with Creswell Airport or move to another.

"I've been doing this for a long time, and I have a lot of contacts," Wright said. He has operated the business, started by his late father, for 20 years.

"As soon as people found out I was having trouble here, they started contacting me," he said. "I'm looking at Albany, Cottage Grove, Medford, Corvallis and Probst Field," a private airstrip near Albany. "But I want to stay here. My hangar is set up specifically for skydiving."

Wright Brothers and rival Eugene Skydivers have long operated out of side-by-side hangars along the Creswell Airport taxiway, using a portion of the airport's property and an adjoining state-owned field as the spot for skydivers to land their parachutes.

Earlier this year, however, both the city and the state withdrew permission for skydivers to use their land.

The actions came after a yearlong standoff between the city and the skydive companies over a new drop-zone user agreement proposed by the city to address safety and liability issues.

Eugene Skydivers also suspended operations last week after receiving the Aug. 11 letter from Larry Richards, manager of the FAA's Flight Standards District Office in Hillsboro.

Neither Eugene Skydivers owner Urban Moore nor his attorney could be reached for comment Tuesday.

But Wright estimated that his company lost $10,000 in revenue because of the lost week and publicity over the drop zone dispute.

Richards warned in his letter that all skydive companies, skydive pilots and parachutists who continue operations "over or on this airport will be investigated for possible violation" of FAA regulations.

He said his office had determined that parachute operations are "currently unsafe" at Creswell Airport, "due to the lack of a signed agreement" between airport management and the two skydive companies.

Wright pointed to the latter line as evidence that "the FAA has no problem with us."

"They say that all we have to do is get a safety plan with the city of Creswell," he said. "That should be easy - we've operated years here with zero problems."

City officials disagree, citing complaints from other pilots and fight instructors about skydivers jumping through clouds, swooping too low over an active runway and even walking across the runway in front of aircraft.

Many complaints also centered on skydive pilots "diving into" the middle of the airport's landing pattern from higher altitudes, cutting in front of other planes that are queued up to land - a practice Moore and Wright have acknowledged but say is safe.

FAA officials disputed that claim, saying all planes are required to enter the flight pattern at the airport's posted landing pattern elevation of 1,400 feet.

And FAA regional spokesman Mike Fergus reiterated Tuesday that the federal agency has safety concerns of its own.

"You've got student pilots in there doing touch-and-go landings, you have a landing pattern that's like a big oval racetrack," he said of the Creswell airport. "The U.S. Parachute Association has reportedly been saying that there could be some kind of mitigating measures passed to address those concerns. But the airport and the users have to come to an agreement that does so."

Creswell City Administrator Mark Shrives said he plans to place the FAA letter on the agenda for the City Council's Sept. 11 meeting.