Neighborhood airstrip where family died in Fresno plane crash was first of its kind

Four members of a family were killed in an airplane crash in Fresno over Labor Day weekend at what’s known as the “world’s first” airstrip that runs directly through the middle of a neighborhood.

Sierra Sky Park, established in 1946, is a unique community of pilots who can taxi aircraft from their homes directly to the public-use airstrip near the San Joaquin River on the city’s northwest side.

The neighborhood has extra-wide streets so cars and airplanes can share the pavement.

Danna Eady, a flight instructor at Reedley College, and her husband, Craig Eady, were found severely injured outside plane wreckage near the park on Saturday and taken to a hospital, where they both died in the days following the crash.

The couple’s two youngest sons were pronounced deceased at the scene.

Danna and Craig, both 41 years old, lived in the community of Auberry in the eastern Fresno County foothills. They have two other older children who were not in the crash, according to family fundraising efforts.

The tragedy has shaken the community. Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said the city is ready to do whatever it can to help in a statement released Tuesday.

“There are no words that can adequately express the heartbreak of losing Craig and Danna Eady and their two young sons,” Dyer said. “Our entire community is grieving with the Eady family, especially the two surviving children who are facing an unimaginable loss.”

It’s not the first time a plane has crashed at or near Sierra Sky Park.

Several other crashes by planes taking off or landing at the airport have been reported in recent years, including a 2020 incident in which a Cessna 172 Skyhawk crashed through a fence and a pedestrian walkway before landing on its roof in the center median of Herndon Avenue. The pilot suffered minor injuries.

In 2016, William Huene and Chase Splan died in an experimental aircraft that left Sierra Sky Park before plunging into the San Joaquin River.

An ultralight aircraft was forced to land in a field just west of the Sky Park in 2012. The pilot was not injured. In 2002, pilot Alan Tolle survived a flight that began at the sky park and ended at Avenue 10 and Road 32 in Madera County. Although the left wing and engine were sheared off in the crash near a vineyard, Tolle suffered only a cut finger, The Bee previously reported.

These kinds of neighborhoods remain fairly uncommon, but Sierra Sky Park set the precedent for the roughly 700 similar communities across the country today, according to Realtor.com.

Little information has been released on the details of the Eady family crash.

It’s being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board, but it will likely take up to a year.