Pilot dead after plane crash-lands in residential street near Moorabbin Airport
A PILOT has died after his light plane crash-landed onto a suburban street, south of Melbourne, and caught fire.
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A PILOT has been killed in a fiery crash-landing on a suburban street in Melbourne’s south.
The single-engine Cessna 172 aircraft was torn to shreds when it took out power lines and part of a residential fence in Mordialloc.
It crash-landed in the middle of Scarlet St just after 5pm.
Scarlet St resident Justin Vance, 42, was one of the first on the scene.
“We saw the power lines move and we ran outside and saw a ball of flames,” he told the Herald Sun.
“It was all over by the time we got out there — just a big ball of flames.”
Victoria Police spokeswoman Belinda Batty confirmed one person was on board and had died at the scene.
Did you witness the crash? Email tamsin.buchan@news.com.au
#BREAKING a solo pilot has died following a light plane crash in Mordialloc. A child care centre, just metres from the scene has been evacuated. @tamsinroses @theheraldsun pic.twitter.com/pdmQsK7CZh
— Brittany Goldsmith (@brittgoldsmith2) June 8, 2018
Another Scarlet Street resident said he could see the burnt-out cockpit of the single-engine plane which came to rest in the middle of the street.
“By the look of it, he must have already been pretty low when he came down, rather than plunging from a great height,” the neighbour said.
“Someone said the plane bounced off the front fence of a house as it came down, just missing the house.”
Another neighbour, Robert Fox, said he saw firemen hosing down the burning plane, after sirens alerted him to the crash across the street.
“It was very intense, it was very strong. I guess it was the fuel tank,” he said.
Kingston City councillor Geoff Gledhill said he spoke to a Scarlet St resident who claimed the plane struck a house and landed on the street, hitting a car.
Dozens of residents have also been left without power after the crash.
The crash site is less than 1km from the runway at Moorabbin Airport, and 25km south of Melbourne CBD.
Motorists have been urged to avoid the area, with Warren Rd closed in both directions between Lower Dandenong Rd and Scarlet St.
Authorities are advising alternatives including Boundary Rd or Nepean Hwy.
Police will prepare a report for the coroner, and the exact cause of the crash will be investigated by Australian Transport Safety Bureau.
The bureau said in a statement that investigators would examine the charred wreckage and collect evidence from the scene tomorrow morning.
Melbourne was the scene of another shocking fatal plane crash last year, when a chartered plane flying to King Island, Tasmania, ploughed into the roof of the Essendon DFO on February 21. The pilot and four American golfers were killed.
A man was also killed in a light plane crash at Clyde North in Melbourne’s southeast after it crashed in a paddock last August.
And a Piper Aircraft departing from Moorabbin Airport smashed into waters off the Bellarine Peninsula in 2016, killing all four people on board on January 29.
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