The owner of a Pickens County auto parts store said he's used to hearing planes coming and going from the nearby runway. But the sound he heard Friday afternoon wasn't one he had heard before.
"We heard the plane hit my truck," Doug Burgess, who owns a NAPA Auto Parts store, told the AJC.
An instructor and a student pilot were seriously injured when their single-engine plane crashed shortly after noon in Jasper, a North Georgia city about 20 miles north of Canton. But the pilot's actions may have prevented anyone else from being hurt.
The Cessna 150 started having engine trouble shortly after takeoff from nearby Pickens County Airport and attempted to land in a grassy spot near a Wendy's restaurant, which was crowded for lunch time, Bob Howard, Pickens County fire chief, told the AJC.
After hitting the ground, the plane went back up, but not for long.
“They clipped a vehicle and a Dumpster," Howard said. "They ended up in a Georgia DOT holding lot, about 500 feet from the airport runway. If they could’ve stayed up another minute, they could’ve made it."
The struck vehicle was Burgess' 1998 Chevrolet pickup truck, which likely was totaled from the impact, Burgess said.
The two men aboard the plane, whose names were not released, sustained broken bones and facial injuries and were taken to WellStar Kennestone Hospital in Marietta, Howard said. Their injuries were not believed to be life-threatening.
Burgess said he and others in the area credited the pilot with keeping the plane away from hitting people.
"Those two men need to very much count their lucky stars," Howard said. "We're ecstatic we're not working some fatalities."
FAA and NTSB investigators were headed to the scene late Friday, Howard said.
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