image: Click-2 News
Three small general aviation airplanes have crashed at off-airport sites in the last two days, killing one pilot and injuring another. In Houston, Texas, a Piper PA-24 crashed onto the flat roof of a Macy’s distribution center about five miles northwest of Hobby Airport, just before midnight on Sunday. “I was watching it, and I just seen it like struggle,” witness JonathanSiguenzatold the local Click-2 news. The FAA said the 52-year-old pilot was flying in from St. Louis when the airplane lost power. The aircraft clipped the side of the building before landing on top. The aircraft was substantially damaged; the pilot was taken to a hospital, but was expected to recover. The other crashes took place on a freeway and a train track.
In Georgia, the pilot of a Cessna 182F told ATC this morning he was having mechanical problems and couldn’t make it to the airport. The pilot set down safely in the northbound lanes of Interstate 185; nobody was hurt in the incident. In Hayward, California, a pilot was killed on Sunday about noontime when his Piper PA-23 twin crashed into railroad tracks at a BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) station. The site is about four miles east of Hayward Executive Airport. Bystanders tried to pull the pilot out of the burning airplane, according to local news reports.
