A pilot who crashed a small plane in Lawrenceville on Tuesday — after he said he lost engine power at about 1,600 feet and clipped some trees on the way down — attributes his survival to to a higher power.
“I think I’m lucky. I had a co-pilot from above helping me, there’s no doubt about that,” the man, who did not want to be identified, told Channel 2 Action News.
The pilot, who is in his middle 20s and from Duluth, and a teenage passenger from Johns Creek, suffered only minor injuries when the Piper 28 single-engine aircraft lost a wing and went down in the backyard of a home on Old Fountain Road near Amhearst Mill Drive. The location is about two miles north of the Gwinnett County airport.
The pilot was practicing takeoffs and landings when the crash happened, according to a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration. The 1971 Piper is registered to Quinn Resnick of Alpharetta, according to online FAA records. Channel 2 said the plane is owned by the father of the teenage passenger.
The plane grazed the roof of one home but there was no structural damage, and there was no fire from the crash. But debris was scattered along Old Fountain Road.
The pilot and his passenger met with federal investigators Wednesday morning and looked over the plane to help determine what happened, Channel 2 reported. The FAA examined the engine, according to Channel 2.
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