Pilot walks away from crash landing at Parafield Airport, in Adelaide’s north

A PILOT has walked away from a crash landing at Parafield Airport, in Adelaide’s north.

A PILOT has walked away from a crash landing at Parafield Airport, in Adelaide’s north.

Emergency services were called to the airfield around 12 noon with reports of an aircraft making an emergency landing.

Witness Paul Kelly was driving past when he noticed the front wheel was only partly down for landing instead of being fully retracted.

“I saw some bright sparks as the aircraft came down and landed on the air strip,’’ he said.
“It wasn’t all the way locked (and) it slid for about 150m.

“He (the pilot) got out, he just looked at the aircraft and shook his head.’’

An Adelaide Airport spokesman confirmed the pilot was the only person on board the plane.

He was uninjured and did not require any medical treatment.

“It may have been a collapsed nose wheel on landing. The front wheel has landed, collapsed and skidded along the runway,’’ he said.
“We don’t have any details on the passenger.’’

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, a skydiver injured his back during a hard landing near Mallala.

An ambulance was sent to Adelaide Tandem Skydiving around 12.45pm to treat a man in his 50s and to take him to the hospital.

An Adelaide Tandem Skydiving spokesman said it was a normal tandem jump and upon preparing to land the pair encountered a change in the wind as they prepared to land.

The staff member on the skydive was not injured.

“It was a slight gust of wind, a change in the wind on landing,’’ the spokesman said.

“The tandem pair landed quite firmly. They weren’t smacked in. They didn’t drop out of the air or anything.’’