Plane Makes Crash Landing in Falls County; No Injuries

A personal aircraft was forced to make a crash landing near Chilton after engine trouble mid-flight around 5:30 am on Monday, Oct. 27. The plane, A Denney Kitfox III airplane according to a preliminary report by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), sustained substantial damage to the fuselage and wings, but pilot and passenger sustained no injuries.

Falls County Sheriff’s Deputy R. Lord responded to the scene and provided additional details after the accident.

“The pilot stated that he was about 3,000 feet up when he lost engine function,” Lord said. “He tried to restart the engine while still in the air and when he realized that wasn’t going to work, he called ‘Mayday’. The towers answered him, got his wing number and location, and he was going to try to land on Hwy. 7 between 320 and Chilton, but he noticed all the cars on the road and decided a different course of action.”

The passenger pointed out a nearby field to try and land in, but the pilot ran into trouble.

“The headlights on his airplane caught the telephone pole,” Lord said. “He had to maneuver to a hard right and touched down but noticed a fence line and tree line fast approaching, so he made an evasive maneuver and the plane flipped over right before they hit the trees.”

Photos of the plane resting upside down were shared on social media. The pilot and his girlfriend recently moved to College Station, Texas, and he makes the roundtrip flight to Waco for work on a daily basis. The pilot and passenger are likely thanking their lucky stars that they sustained no major injuries.

“They were definitely shaken up but no bruises, no cuts. I took over the scene because the nightshift deputies were tired and they needed a fresh set of eyes on the scene,” Lord said. “A lot of phone calls with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) investigators, the towers who got the Mayday call- a lot of phone calls with them, and obviously making sure that everybody was okay.”