Plane crash on CSX Mainline

[spankybird]

Hi all,

Just wanted to say that we had a small single engine plane crash on the CSX mainline tracks here in Willoughby, Ohio around 5:00am today. The crash killed the pilot and shut down all train traffic for the better part of the day.

This is about ½ mile from my house and a very populated area. By the plain crashing on the tracks, it saved many house and lives.

It will most probably on the news tonight.

tom

[spankybird]

Here is the link to our local newspaper, The News-Herald. The paper had a great picture on the front page, but they didn’t post it on there web site.

http://www.news-herald.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=11658109&BRD=1698&PAG=461&dept_id=21849&rfi=6

[Anonymous]

The plane came in at such a steep angle that the fuel tanks exploded. All that is left of the plane in the photos is a heap of charred metal fragments, none bigger than a couple of feet across. So sad for an experienced flight instructor to end up piling it in like this, but I have hunch he knew exactly what he was doing once he realized he had lost the plane. As Tom mentioned, there are residential and industrial areas clustered around the crash site, yet the plane hit smack dab in the center of a broad right-of-way.

The CSX trackage was damaged but should be repaired by this afternoon, again because the impact area was so focused.

Photo by PD photog and friend Chuck Crow: