Pilot lucky to be alive after plane crash in Dundowran Beach paddock
A school mum who called Triple-o when she spotted smoke rising from scrub on her way to afternoon pick-up has described what she saw after a plane crashed into a paddock. VIDEO, PHOTOS.
Fraser Coast
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The pilot of a light plane has had a miraculous escape after crashing into a paddock in Hervey Bay following a mayday call.
Emergency services were first called to Hervey Bay airport shortly after 2pm after the pilot made contact with air traffic control to relay a mayday message.
But air traffic control was not able to make any further contact with the pilot and he did not arrive at the airport.
Soon after, a triple-0 emergency call came through reporting that the plane, understood to be a Cessna, had crashed in a paddock off Pialba Burrum Heads Rd.
The paddock is earmarked for future housing development.
Lisa Allsopp, a mum on her way to school pick up, raised the alarm with emergency services.
She told this publication she had seen thick black smoke and then some flames as she was heading into town.
“I thought to myself, ‘that’s not the kind of smoke you would get from someone burning off’,” she said.
“I thought ‘you wouldn’t burn off in this wind in the bush’.
“So, once I got to Yarrilee School I called triple-0 to tell them what I had seen.”
Emergency services arrived to find the pilot, a man in his 30s, walking around the wreckage of his Cessna with a large cut on his head.
After the pilot landed the helicopter at the scene of the incident, the crew was advised the pilot of the crashed aircraft had made his way on foot through surrounding bushland, a statement from RACQ Lifeflight said.
“He met Queensland Ambulance Service paramedics and Queensland Police Service officers at a nearby road,” the statement read.
The pilot suffered minor injuries and was taken by paramedics to Hervey Bay Hospital in stable condition.
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