14 DAY TRIAL // A 70-year-old pilot has crashed a small plane into a mobile home near Laurel, in Anne Arundel County, Maryland.
Ronald H. Dixon was maneuvering a single-engine Beechcraft Muskateer when he steered it too low and it smashed into the mobile home at 13 South Bruce Street in Laurel in the Parkway Village Trailer Park.
Fortunately, the residents were not at home at the time. Dixon has survived the 10:15 a.m. crash with non-life-threatening injuries, the Maryland State Police state. He was the only person injured in the accident.
“We can confirm that the pilot was conscious and alert. transported 2 Shock Trauma. No injuries on the grd.,” a spokesperson for Anne Arundel Police said on Twitter, as relayed by Huffington Post.
Dixon was alone on the plane when it took off from Suburban Airport in Laurel, going down soon after that.
“I was standing in the kitchen of my home and I heard a loud boom,” witness Joe Arrington described, mentioning that he helped firefighters get Dixon out.
Arrington got out to check the damage and felt the smell of gas, so he rushed the pilot out before calling 911.
“[I] dragged him from that plane about 25 feet (7.6 meters).
“I further comforted him. I told told him my name and that he was going to be alright and that 911 was on the way,” he recalls.
Crystal Brisbon tells WJLA that the plane hit a tree located near her home before destroying her neighbor's home.
“It was scary. [...] They were fortunate, they weren't home, all of us were home, it came so close, that could have been our home,” she says.
Officials reported that the pilot was getting the plane to a new owner in York, Pennsylvania. There is no information about the cause of the crash.