The video snippet shows the aftermath of a crash that looks to be unsurvivable. Amazingly, none of the three aboard sustained serious injuries.
Two planes, an Experimental Team Rocket and a Cessna 172, collided on short final in San Marcos late last week. The pilot of the Skyhawk walked away unharmed. The two in the Experimental plane received what Texas Department of Safety officials called “non-life-threatening” injuries.
The accident occurred moments after the San Marcos control tower closed at 7pm local time. A passerby on his way home from work, Zane Juarez, saw the crash and came to the rescue of the two men who were trapped in the homebuilt plane on the airport service road just before the approach end of Runway 08, according to local news outlet KXAN.
The pilot of the Skyhawk was luckily able to get out of the plane and walk away, and responders were on the scene in minutes and were there when one of the planes explodes, after everyone had cleared the immediate area.
It’s well known that the traffic pattern is the place where pilots are most at risk of midair collisions, and this one, which apparently happened on short final, appears to be a classic example of a high-wing/low-wing collision, whereby neither plane is visible to the other due to the placement of the wing either above or below the seating area of the plane. That’s one factor investigators surely will be looking into.
The FAA and NTSB are investigating the crash.
