An Australian pilot and his partner miraculously walked away unhurt after their light plane lost all power and narrowly avoided crashing into suburban homes in Sydney before belly-landing on a runway.
The video footage captured the moment pilot Jake Swanepoel desperately guided his light aircraft over houses in Western Sydney after experiencing engine failure shortly before 2pm on Sunday.
The small Cessna plane clipped the top of a tree and barely cleared two hangars at Bankstown Airport, in the city’s west, before smashing onto the runway and screeching to a halt on the grass 150 meters later.
9News Sydney News Chopper captured terrifying video of a emergency landing after a single engine plane loses engine power.The plane was so low, it nearly clipped a tree and a hanger before safely landing at Bankstown Airport, nobody was injured @9NewsSyd pic.twitter.com/dPhb3Ueu80
— Helicopter Cams (@HelicopterCams) May 26, 2024
“It was gliding, there was no power,” a shaken Swanepoel, who has flown for almost 30 years, told Australian outlet 9News. “We clipped the trees and just made it over the hangar.” But Swanepoel and his partner Karin emerged from the damaged aircraft unharmed.
Karin said they doubted they would reach the runway. “It was very, very close,” she said. “It was scary and nerve-wracking because you were thinking about all these homes that you could potentially… you know, if you don’t make the runway.”
New South Wales Ambulance confirmed there were no injuries. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will investigate the cause of the crash. It’s understood the plane landed on the taxiway, leaving the airport’s runway unaffected.
In a similar incident in 2008, two people aboard a light aircraft died after their plane collided in mid-air with another light aircraft before plummeting into a home near Bankstown Airport.
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