Plane Crashes Near DeKalb Airport
A single-engine airplane that took off from DeKalb-Peachtree Airport crash landed on top of a home a short distance from the runway Monday afternoon. One person was on-board and did not suffer any injuries, an FAA official said. Ilsa Sanchez and her son were inside the home at the time of the crash. They were not injured either.
Sanchez said her son’s room was destroyed in the crash. “I was inside her house and all of a sudden we heard a loud crash,” said Lucero Espinoza. A Chamblee detective in the area said it appeared as if the plane’s engine stopped in mid-air.
The pilot apparently attempted to return to the airport but instead went down, hitting part of the roof of the home at 3006 Villa Esta Drive about 3:30 p.m. “The people came over the radio and declared an emergency, said he wasn’t going to make it and was trying to make it back,” said Kevin Harper, who was on the tarmac at the airport and next in line for take-off after the plane that eventually crashed.
“It’s amazing he’s alive,” he added. “To see it was pretty horrific.”
“I was standing in my mother’s front-yard and noticed a plane coming really low across the tree-tops and didn’t think really a whole lot about it and then heard a real loud noise and I thought there’s no way that just crashed and so, I just went on about my business, and in about five minutes there were helicopters flying overhead,” said John Atkins who witnessed the crash.
The pilot was able to climb out by himself. He met firefighters on the roof to make sure the leaking fuel did not explode. Residents of a neighborhood which straddles the Chamblee and DeKalb County line near the airport said they often talk about something like this happening.
“You think about it, but you don’t really worry about it, “said Doug Scollon, a neighborhood resident. Wayne Mahfuz, another resident, added, “Every time I look up and see [planes] fly over the house, I’m just wondering which one is not gonna make it to where it’s going and hit the houses.” The boy who was inside the house and was the most shaken up by the incident. He was taken to a nearby hospital to be checked out and was reported to be fine.
The plane was owned by RHR Equipment Leasing, LLC, based out of Alpharetta, Ga. The name of the pilot has not been released. National Transportation Safety Board officials are at the scene conducting an investigation. The wreckage will not be removed till Tuesday morning.
