LAKE WORTH BEACH, Fla. (WSVN) — Seven people were rushed to the hospital after a small plane collided with a vehicle in Palm Beach County.
Palm Beach Fire Rescue units and Sheriff’s Office deputies said two people were inside the plane and five people were inside the Toyota Camry.
According to the website FlightAware, the plane, an Orlican M8 Eagle, crashed roughly a minute after take off. Another flight tracking website showed the plane only reached 200 feet in altitude before hitting the ground less than 30 seconds later.
7News cameras captured the plane crumpled on a normally busy walking trail in a neighborhood, feet from a residential street.
Deputies said the pilot and a passenger suffered injuries that were non-life-threatening. Paramedics rushed them to St. Mary’s Medical Center.
An adult and four children were inside the vehicle. All five of them were rushed to a local hospital as a precaution.
Ryan Abidail, a pilot, told 7News those inside the plane have little time to react and little space to land.
“In a situation like this, where they were probably so low, you only have so much time to react because the first thing you’re gonna think about is this is actually happening, and the second thing is the best place you can be. So, for example, if they’re coming out of there, they really only have here and the water, so either they hit a house or they hit something like that. At the end of the day, you only have so much space and so much time.”
Detectives said the plane clipped a palm tree before skimming the top of the moving car before landing near the Lantana Airport in the Lake Osborne Estates neighborhood.
“The palm tree clearly got its head chopped off. The speed sign got grazed,” said president of the Lake Osborne Estates Civic Association Mary Adam de Villiers. “It’s just amazing, and then the, the wood barrier got um just undone. I, I mean, it’s just amazing that there isn’t any more damage, so really that was my first thought was, like, ‘Wow, I can’t believe there isn’t any fatality, any serious injuries.'”
Neighbors say they have long been concerned about low-flying aircrafts, both for noise and safety concerns.
“I heard a thud and, because I live a little bit further down this way, about a half mile down this way, and I saw the pilot and the other person, I’m not sure if it was a student or co-pilot, um, being loaded into the ambulance one had a cut on his head, um, and the other person was sitting there just fine,” said neighbor June Bingham.
But they are thankful everyone in this incident survived.
“I did talk to the person that owns the car,” said Bingham. “It was his family, and he said they were just shaking up just from the whatever it was that landed on the car. Nobody was walking, bicycling on this path right here. I mean, just amazing.”
The identities of those involved have not been released.
The cause of the crash remains under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
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