Pilot OK After Plane Crash-Lands on Street

The pilot of a single-engine plane with mechanical trouble crash-landed on a residential street, destroying the plane but walking away with only scrapes.

The 58-year-old pilot swooped under a power line, touched down between homes, clipped a small tree and spun around before coming to rest, nose-down, against a utility pole, authorities said.

“Under the circumstances, he did a hell of a job,” said Sgt. Bill Meers of the Huntington Beach Police Department. “He’s not injured. He walked away with minor abrasions and scrapes at best.”

Meers said the Cessna pilot was flying home from Riverside to Long Beach about 7:30 p.m. when the engine began sputtering just west of Disneyland. The pilot told police he was looking for a schoolyard or an open field to land, but ran out of time.

The plane skidded down Briarcliff Drive, narrowly missing houses on both sides. It traveled 200 feet before coming to rest. The pilot told police he shut off his fuel tanks before crash-landing to avoid a fire.

Almon Fackrell, 68, was in his upstairs bedroom when he heard what “sounded like a car coming down the street, sliding on its roof. I looked out my balcony window and there it was, a plane, leaning up against a light pole in my front yard.”