A small training aircraft came down in a North Phoenix residential neighborhood after suffering mechanical failure mid-flight, clipping the roof of one home and crash-landing in the backyard of another. The flight instructor and student pilot on board survived. So did the residents beneath the flight path. By every reasonable measure, it should have been far worse.
The aircraft, a four-seater Piper PA-28, had taken off from nearby Deer Valley Airport before the mechanical failure forced the crew to attempt a return. They didn't make it back to the runway. The plane struck the roof of the first home, shedding a wing and a side panel on impact, and came to rest in the backyard of a second property. Hazmat crews were called in to contain a fuel leak. Firefighters and investigators worked through the night assessing structural damage to both homes. Several houses in the surrounding neighborhood were evacuated as a precaution.
According to the U.S. Sun, inside the first home that was struck, a man was present at the time of impact. A family with a four-month-old baby also lives in the home. He was transported to a medical facility, though Phoenix Fire Captain Todd Keller was clear that the transport was precautionary.
Situations like this when you do have multiple residences involved and you have houses with people coming and going, it was a miracle no one was injured.
That word, miracle, is not an overstatement. A heavier aircraft, a slightly different angle, a few feet in any direction, and this story ends with a body count. The wing alone, separating mid-collision and landing in a residential yard, tells you how much force was involved.
Captain Keller confirmed the basic sequence of events:
Early indications are that the plane did hit that first house, landed in that second house's backyard. That first house person [was] transported for precautionary measures.
A nine-year-old girl named Brianna saw it happen. She ran to tell her father, Sean, who was getting her ready for school at the time.
I said, 'Daddy I think I saw a plane crash!'
Sean didn't believe her. No smoke. No fireball. None of the Hollywood markers of disaster.
I just didn't believe it because I didn't see any smoke and I told her … there'd be a big mushroom fire or cloud of smoke out there and there was nothing and so I proceeded to take her to school like nothing was wrong.
It wasn't until he was driving home that the reality caught up with him. He saw a clip online. It was real.
It wasn't until I got about halfway home after dropping her off at school, I looked at a clip online and it was real. So, it's been an out of body experience.
Brianna, for her part, handled it with the kind of quiet dignity that puts most adults to shame.
I was a little scared because I was hoping that everyone was OK.
The Federal Aviation Administration confirmed the Piper PA-28 experienced a mechanical failure after takeoff and that the crew attempted to return to Deer Valley Airport. The FAA stated it is assisting in the ongoing investigation into the cause of the failure.
The details of what exactly went wrong mechanically have not yet been released. The names of the flight instructor and student pilot have not been disclosed, nor has the full extent of their injuries. Those answers will come through the investigation.
What is already clear is that the crew made the correct call. When the aircraft began to fail, they turned back. They didn't press on. Whether through skill, instinct, or both, they kept the aircraft from crashing in the middle of the neighborhood at full speed. The outcome, given the circumstances, reflects that.
North Phoenix neighborhoods sit in close proximity to Deer Valley Airport by design. Training flights, touch-and-go landings, and student pilots are a routine feature of the airspace there. Most days, that arrangement is unremarkable. On this day, it almost became catastrophic.
No one died. A man was checked out as a precaution. A nine-year-old witnessed something she will likely remember for the rest of her life. And somewhere, a flight instructor and a student pilot are processing what it means to walk away from a crash that took out a roofline and shed a wing on impact.
The investigation continues. The homes are being assessed. The neighborhood is slowly returning to normal.
Brianna was hoping everyone was OK. This time, they were.
