At least, five people have been rushed to hospital after a plane crash-landed in a parking lot of a suburban Pennsylvania retirement home.
The tail of the plane, brandishing the code N347M, is seen in the wreckage squashed up next to parked cars and surrounded by thick black smoke billowing through the air
Medics, ambulances, and emergency vehicles rushed to the scene in Lancaster County as the crash triggered a fiery inferno and caused multiple adjacent vehicles to burst into flames between Fairview Drive and Meadowview Court.
The plane took off as scheduled on Sunday afternoon, but quickly requested to land back on the tarmac because its door had opened.
Horrifying air traffic control audio revealed the pilot telling ground agents that they needed to turn around – but at one point he said that he couldn’t hear the radio because of all the wind noise, caused by the unlocked hatch.
The air traffic controller can be heard saying: ‘Pull up… the aircraft is down just behind the terminal in the parking lot tree area.’
An FAA spokesperson said five people were on board the plane. They have all been transferred to local hospitals with various injuries.
Residents of the retirement home were instructed to ‘shelter in place’ as a precaution as initial investigations took place, but authorities have confirmed the pilot avoided nearby buildings and that nobody on the ground was injured.
