It’s a story as old as time. Plane meets tree. Plane falls for tree. Everyone lives happily ever after. Well, at least this 172 pilot did, and that was probably the least likely outcome for him. Better lucky than good comes through again.
We thought of this video when we were giving a pilot friend an example of good news arising from bad circumstances. Remarkably, even though the video has been around for a couple of years, he had never seen it. So we’re sharing it with you here. It’s security cam footage of a 172 crashing into a tree in a parking lot. The pilot is okay. He got away with minor injuries. The plane, not so much.
The pilot, a 79-year-old private pilot with a valid medical and flight review, was landing the 1981 Skyhawk 172-P on Runway 02 at Plainville, Connecticut, when things started going sideways in hurry. According to the NTSB’s report on the accident, the pilot added power and cleaned up the flaps in an attempted go-around, but the plane failed to gain altitude and the pilot put it down in a parking lot off of the departure end. The parking lot wasn’t big enough. Disaster was assured. Then this happened.
The NTSB found nothing wrong with the plane and found it was a loss of control due to an improperly executed go-around.
There was no information on the severity of the injuries to the tree, but we’re guessing it pulled through, too!
