Plane with engine trouble deploys parachute and crashes into trees, SC officials say
A small airplane that was having engine trouble crashed into trees in South Carolina on Sunday, officials said.
The pilot was about three miles away from the Greenville Downtown Airport when the plane started having oil pressure problems, the Wade Hampton Fire Department said.
Robert Hoover, a spokesperson for the Greenville Downtown Airport, told McClatchy News on Monday that the plane had left Aiken and was going to Hendersonville, North Carolina, but headed toward the airport in Greenville when the engine trouble started.
The pilot said on the radio that he was going to try to “glide in and land at the airport” but couldn’t make it, the fire department said. So he deployed the plane’s parachute to slow it down and landed in the trees “near Woodlawn Cemetery and the former Wade Hampton fire station on Pine Knoll Drive.”
Only the pilot was aboard the plane, which is a “single-engine Composite Technology Light Sport,” the Federal Aviation Administration told McClatchy News.
The pilot was “shaken up” but was not seriously hurt in the crash and was not transported to a hospital, the fire department said.
The FAA is investigating the crash.
Greenville is in Upstate South Carolina, about 100 miles from Columbia.
Editor’s note: This story was updated with more details on Monday morning.
This story was originally published October 10, 2021 at 3:27 PM with the headline "Plane with engine trouble deploys parachute and crashes into trees, SC officials say."
