Wild moment plane crashes onto golf course and narrowly misses golfer
A small plane made a belly landing in front of a golfer who was putting and skid past him in Sacramento, California.
A golfer who was practicing putting had what was likely the biggest scare of his time on the green as a plane crash landed and just narrowly missed him.
Surveillance cameras captured the wild moment that the small plane made a belly landing in front of the golfer, who stepped back in shock, and skid to concrete before eventually coming to a stop.
Another CCTV clip recorded from a more distant side angle shows the aircraft sliding through grass and concrete and appearing not to strike any vehicles in a parking lot or other structures.
The golfer’s identity was not immediately known, but others at the Haggin Oaks Golf Complex in Sacramento, California, were also caught by surprise.
‘We were on the 16th hole when this happened,’ golfer Tim Colin told KCRA of the Sunday afternoon incident. ‘Our group heard the loud crash, but we had no idea it was a plane.’
The single-engine Piper PA-28 experienced an engine failure while taking off from the privately owned McClellan airport and dropped 400 feet form the air, according to aviation officials.
‘Luckily, there was a golf course nearby where he could lay it down,’ said Sacramento Fire Department Capt Justin Sylvia.
The aircraft halted just before the Haggin Oaks pro shop.
‘Literally 10 feet to the right, it would have gone through our glass door, straight into the pro shop,’ Morton Golf vice president Ken Morton Jr told KCRA.
‘I have lots of staff, lots of customers in there, and it would have been really disastrous. The fact it ended up with everyone being OK is really a miracle.’
The pilot was also lucky, and walked away shaken with just a small laceration on his hand.
‘This is something we don’t see very often,’ Sylvia told CBS News. ‘The remarkable thing about this situation is no one was injured.’
The crash is being investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Ethan Sison, who was golfing on another side of the course, said he saw helicopters and an ambulance.
‘I saw the skid marks and I was like, “What is that?” I thought it was a car at first,’ he told the news outlet.
Another golfer, Fred Robertson, was grateful no one was hurt.
‘Definitely counting my blessings,’ Robertson told KCRA.
‘I usually putt right on that putting green… but just by chance, something told me to hold off before I got here. Sure enough. It isn’t too often planes fall out of the sky.’
The frightening incident happened just a couple weeks after CCTV footage recorded the moment a small plane crash landed in the front yard of a home in northern Utah. The homeowner was fortunate that the aircraft stopped short of the house.
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