Small plane crashes near retirement home in Pennsylvania

Some plane accidents are due to pilot or air controller errors, while others are just unavoidable.

The former would seem to be the case of a small plane that crashed near a retirement home in Pennsylvania.

According to reports, almost immediately after takeoff, the plane had difficulties, eventually crashing in the parking lot of Brethren Village in Manheim Township.

What is Happening?

The Beechcraft A36TC appeared to be having problems nearly as soon as it took off.

Not long after takeoff, the pilot of the plane requested permission to land because the door on the plane had opened.

The pilot was having difficulties hearing the air traffic controllers due to the large amount of wind in the cabin due to the fact the door had not been properly secured.

The voice recordings can hear the air traffic controller telling the pilot to “pull up,” then can be heard saying, “the aircraft is down just behind the terminal in the parking lot tree area.”

The FAA announced that five people were on board the plane, all of them having been transferred to local hospitals for treatment.

The residents of the retirement home were told to shelter in place as a precaution, and it was later revealed that the pilot managed to miss everyone on the ground, so nobody else was injured except for the passengers and crew on the plane.

When the airplane hit the ground, it burst into flames, with pictures of the crash scene being horrific, so it was rather amazing a single person survived the crash, let alone everyone on board, at least to this point.

The retirement home is only about two blocks away from the airport.

The plane was reportedly traveling to Springfield-Beckley Municipal Airport in Ohio.

This just caps off what has been a horrible start to the year for the aviation industry, and particularly these smaller planes, as there was another accident just a few weeks ago when a medical transfer plane went down in Pennsylvania, killing all six people on board.

There was also a small plane that crashed over Alaska, killing 10 people on board.

Of course, we all remember the Black Hawk helicopter that collided with a passenger plane over the Potomac earlier this year, killing everyone aboard both planes.

Secretary Duffy has his hands full getting this straightened out, as the transportation industry is clearly in dire need of some overhaul.