A small airplane crashed into a parking lot at a retirement community next to the Lancaster Airport on Sunday afternoon, with all five of the plane’s occupants taken to area hospitals, according to emergency officials.
The plane touched down outside an apartment block in Brethren Village at 3:18 p.m. and skidded roughly 100 feet before coming to a stop, according to Manheim Township Police Chief Duane Fisher.
Officials could not immediately confirm the condition of the plane’s occupants or the nature of their injuries.
Emergency crews arrived to “heavy fire” from the plane, said Manheim Township Fire Chief Scott Little, but were eventually able to extinguish the blaze with “copious amounts of water.”
No one on the ground was injured, although roughly a dozen cars were damaged, according to Fisher and Little. Several vehicles, including the plane itself, were gutted by flames.
The retirement village buildings did not suffer any structural damage, Fisher said.
Asked if he considered the relative lack of destruction to be miraculous, Fisher said, “I don’t know if I’d consider it a miracle, but the fact that we have a plane crash where everybody survives and nobody on the ground is hurt, it’s a wonderful thing.”
The plane had taken off from Lancaster Airport — located in Manheim Township, just north of the city — shortly before the crash, local officials said. Flight tracking data shows the plane was headed to Springfield, Ohio.
The aircraft – a six-seater 1981 Beechcraft – was registered to a limited liability corporation at a residential address in nearby Rapho Township, according to Federal Aviation Administration records. Officials on the scene said they did not yet have any details as to the nature of the plane’s operations or the purpose of Sunday’s flight.
Air traffic audio captured someone on the plane requesting to land and saying that a door was open, according to audio obtained by the Associated Press. An air traffic controller can be heard saying “pull up!” before someone states that the plane has gone down.
One witness said the plane said he saw the plane crash shortly after takeoff.
“It was pretty high, but then it started veering left, and suddenly it nose-dived sideways while continuing to turn left,” Brian Pipkin told CNN.
