Bryan Business Council issues statement about disabled airplane on their property

BRYAN, Texas (KBTX) - The Bryan Business Council has released a statement regarding a small aircraft that remains on one of its properties following a pilot’s emergency landing in the field on Thursday, December 27, 2022.

The organization has requested that the plane be removed by Thursday from its 196-acre field located west of the Texas A&M University Health Science Center between Riverside Parkway and Jones Road.

The owner of the plane, Borrel Rene Jean Luc from Marksville, Louisiana, has made claims in recent weeks on social media that he hasn’t been allowed access to his 1977 Piper Lance 2 single-engine aircraft.

The property where the plane landed is owned by the Bryan Business Council and is leased to Clifford Dorn, owner of Rafter D Genetics, LLC, a private company in the cattle business specializing in artificial insemination and embryo transfer.

Dorn says at no point has he prevented the pilot from gaining access to the plane, but tells KBTX the emergency landing disrupted a costly breeding operation involving longhorns owned by Bryan Mayor Bobby Gutierrez, and says the incident has led to a canceled contract resulting in lost income for himself and significant financial loss for Gutierrez.

On Tuesday, the Bryan Business Council released a statement through its attorney, Mike Gentry, saying it is “a non-profit corporation that is separate and distinct from the City of Bryan, and which was formed for various economic development purposes including buying and holding land to be available for future multi-family housing, commercial, manufacturing, and industrial prospects. The BBC’s board of directors acts independently of the City of Bryan.”

Dorn also clarified that he and Gutierrez entered into the private arrangement a couple of years ago, prior to Gutierrez being elected mayor, and stressed that he, not Gutierrez, leases the land from the Bryan Business Council.

The council’s statement expands on that by saying, “In April 2022, the BBC’s property was leased to Rafter D Genetics, LLC. The BBC has learned that Bobby Gutierrez is a client of Rafter D and that at the time of the emergency landing, Gutierrez had located cattle on the property for artificial insemination and embryo harvesting. The BBC does not have a contract with Mr. Gutierrez nor was the BBC aware of the fact that Gutierrez was a client of Rafter D.”

The Bryan Business Council says neither the pilot nor the pilot’s insurance company has contacted them or Dorn following the emergency landing, but once they became aware of the statements shared by the pilot online, the insurance company was contacted and requested that the airplane be removed from the property no later than March 16.

This is a developing story. KBTX will update this story as new information is independently confirmed or verified by our newsroom.

Copyright 2023 KBTX. All rights reserved.