DEKALB COUNTY, Ga. (WSVN) — It was a rude awakening for residents of a neighborhood near Atlanta, Georgia, after a small plane that had taken off from South Florida plunged near their homes. Miraculously, the two people who were on board were able to walk away from the wreckage.
DeKalb County resident Roxy Barlow was still in bed when she heard an awful noise.
“I woke up to this sound like a failing engine — sort of like a whoooong, brrrr — and I thought, ‘Oh, is there a truck accident?’ Because you can hear the freeway now,” she said.
Barlow said more noises quickly followed.
“But then I jumped up, ’cause I heard this crashing — you know, like a whooong, pssh — and I could hear crackling of trees,” she said. “I jumped up, and I saw trees wavering.”
Barlow walked outside and saw a small plane had crashed between two houses.
DeWitt King Jr., who lives in the green house seen with a tree limb over the front door, said he was at church when someone called to say a plane had just crashed next to the house where he’s lived for 42 years.
“A little scary. Scary, yeah. Um, blessed, really, that that it didn’t get no worse than it is,” said King.
DeKalb County Battallion Fire Chief Kevin Cavanaugh said two people were flying a twin-propeller Beechcraft from Miami Executive Airport to the county-owned DeKalb-Peachtree Airport. They were just a couple of miles from the runway when the plane had engine trouble.
“They decided they were gonna try to ground it. They hit the pine trees about 80 or 90 feet up and basically stopped at the trees and landed straight down, in between two houses. No structures involved,” said Cavanaugh.
Cavanaugh said the two people on board were taken to the hospital but are expected to be OK. He even talked with them before they were transported.
“Considering the conditions, they seemed like they were in good shape for what they’ve been through,” he said.
In a statement issued Monday, a spokesperson for the Federal Aviation Administration wrote:
A Beechcraft B90 crashed in a residential area near DeKalb-Peachtree Airport in Georgia around 9:35 a.m. local time on Sunday, Dec. 28. Two people were on board. The FAA will investigate.
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