In early September 2017 a twelve-second video clip capturing a 79-year-old Connecticut pilot's incredibly lucky crash was widely disseminated on the internet. People talked about a lot of things, but notably missing was discussion of what happened in the first place.
How did this guy end up flying into a tree - in a parking lot? And what happened afterwards?
Here is the rest of the story, along with the rest of the video footage, presented together with a collection of accident scene photographs.
Unfortunately, the "story behind the story" isn't nearly as thrilling: This incredible footage only exists because the pilot improperly executed a go-around after bouncing the pictured Cessna 172P Skyhawk on landing.
The NTSB's accident narrative is incredibly short: "The pilot reported that during touchdown the airplane bounced, and he chose to go-around. He applied full power, set the carburetor heat to cold, and began incrementally retracting the flaps. The airplane drifted left of the runway centerline, towards a parking lot, but was not gaining altitude. The pilot started looking for a spot to execute a forced landing when the airplane impacted a tree and collided with the ground. The pilot reported no pre-accident mechanical malfunctions or failures with the airplane that would have precluded normal operation.
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause of this accident to be the pilot's failure to properly execute the go-around, which resulted in the airplane failing to maintain a climb, which resulted in collision with a tree."
Bummer. (But a cool one.)
One other item of note, as the events described can be clearly seen in this footage: The accident pilot stated that after crashing, "Several individuals appeared within seconds. They lifted the wing and forced the door open. When I exited the plane I noticed gasoline dripping from the wing." Did I mention that this guy was lucky?
The split-screen video is playing at 3.5x. And yes, the name of the town that this took place in is Plainville, Connecticut.
