YUMA COUNTY — A pilot survived Monday morning when a small plane went down in an agricultural field near Yuma, the Yuma County Sheriff’s Office said.
Deputies responded shortly before 8:20 a.m. to the area of West County 12th Street and South Avenue G, several miles from the Arizona-Mexico border, according to the sheriff’s office and Arizona’s Family. They found the pilot, the only person aboard, conscious inside what the sheriff’s office described as a civilian single-engine, two-passenger aircraft.
Rescue and injuries
Rural Metro firefighters freed the pilot from the wreckage, Arizona’s Family reported, and the pilot was taken to Onvida Health with injuries the sheriff’s office called non-life-threatening. Earlier reports described the pilot as being in stable condition.
Video aired by Arizona’s Family showed the plane upside down in a grassy field, with its wings split and parts of the tail badly damaged.
A witness told KYMA News 11 the plane had been flying and making maneuvers for about 20 minutes before it crashed, and that he and his co-workers helped the pilot get out and stayed until first responders arrived.
What’s still unknown
Officials initially believed a crop-dusting plane was involved but later said it was not an agricultural aircraft. The exact make and model had not been released Monday, nor had the pilot’s name. The sheriff’s office says the crash remains under investigation; crashes like this are typically also reviewed by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
The sheriff’s office is asking anyone with information to call 928-783-4427, or 78-CRIME to stay anonymous. Tips can also be submitted at yumacountysheriff.org.
Second Arizona small-plane scare in three days
The Yuma crash came two days after a Piper Seminole made a gear-up landing at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. Mesa Fire and Medical said the plane had a landing gear problem around 2 p.m. Saturday and came to what it called a “harrowing stop” on the runway. Both people aboard got out on their own, no injuries were reported, and crews found no visible fuel leak.
Image: Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2015), processed by ESA (CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO, via Wikimedia Commons). False-color satellite view of farmland around Yuma.