Several people were injured late Monday morning when a small jet ran off the end of a runway at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport.
Four people were on board the Hawker Beechcraft 400A that ran off the end of Runway 20L around 10 a.m., then went through a fence before coming to rest near Dresden Drive, according to Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen.
DeKalb County fire Chief Edward O'Brien said all four people had already gotten out of the plane when his crews arrived, and were taken to local hospitals for treatment. Channel 2 Action News reported their injuries were minor.
O'Brien said fire crews worked to contain fuel leaking from the plane's tanks. The plane did not catch fire.
The plane was mostly intact, but aerial shots showed at least two large cracks in the fuselage.
Bergen said the plane is registered to "N79TE LLC" in Centre, Ala.
According to Bergen and the FlightAware flight tracking website, the jet departed the Northeast Alabama Regional Airport in Gadsden earlier Monday morning, and was scheduled to continue on to Jacksonville, Fla., after making a stop at DeKalb-Peachtree.
Mark Anderson was driving past the airport on Dresden Drive as the plane went off the runway.
“As I was coming eastbound, I said, ‘Boy, there’s something not right about this,’ because the plane was coming at a pretty high rate of speed and he was at the end of the runway and he was flat,” Anderson told the AJC.
“I accelerated through and as I was in line with him, he was coming off the end of the runway,” Anderson said.
“He did an evasive action to avoid the barriers at the end, then I heard the brakes squeal, but when he came off the end of the runway, the gear collapsed and he just started coming down the hill.”
Anderson said he stopped his vehicle and ran back toward the plane.
“I got within about 10 feet of it, and the door opened and two guys got out,” he said. “One guy was having a lot of trouble standing up.”
After helping those two men, Anderson went back toward the plane.
“I could see the guy in the left-hand seat, the pilot moving around,” Anderson said.
“But the smell of fuel was intense, and I thought it was going to blow because you could smell the fuel and those engines were still going, those hot engines, so I just started trying to keep people away from it,” he said.
Anderson said it took emergency personnel about seven or eight minutes to arrive.
“By that time, the pilot and co-pilot had gotten out of the plane,” he said, adding that the pilot had sustained a fairly severe head injury.
Aretha Walker, a delivery driver for Pep Boys, said it appeared the plane was landing but was running out of runway space and attempted to take off again. She said the plane climbed briefly but then dropped and plowed into the fence bordering Dresden Drive.
An FAA spokesperson told the station that the pilot did not report any problems prior to landing.
The cause of the crash is still being investigated. Channel 2 reported that the jet was moved into a shed at the airport Monday evening.
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