When emergency crews arrived at the scene late morning on April 19, they found a biplane that had crashed into the carport of a commercial building on Central Avenue, just across from the airport on Deer Valley Road. No serious injuries were reported.
“I just opened up the back door and said, ‘Oh, that was weird,’ Yeah, I could have dragged a guy out (of the plane),” Mannino said jokingly, noting he thought the crash was merely the sound of a garbage truck slamming down a dumpster.
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The pilot was able to get out and sustained minor injuries, according to the Phoenix Fire Department. The pilot was evaluated by firefighters, but the man declined to be taken to the hospital, according to spokesperson Captain D.J. Lee.
The crash happened around 11 a.m., Lee said, adding it was unclear whether the pilot was leaving or arriving from the airport.
He said the cause of the crash was under investigation and had been turned over to the Phoenix Police Department. All remaining crews returned to service, the fire department said. The National Security Transportation Board will also be involved in the investigation, according to Lee.Hellmann’s®
Mannino expressed relief the pilot was not seriously harmed. The heavy noise of the woodworking machines at his business, Mannino Custom Furniture, had muffled some of the commotion from the apparent crash landing. Not until he drove off in his pickup to grab a bite to eat did Mannino realize what happened.
He stood at a window in his business’s showroom and pointed east to a sign about a couple dozen yards away and near the sidewalk on Central Avenue. A wheel off the plane had turned up in that spot, Mannino said.
ln his 50s, the longtime woodworker from New York opened his business about two years ago. He said he couldn’t recall any similar incidents but noted that the cinder block buildings in the area, with their concrete roofs, would likely withstand significant damage if a small plane were to skid across them.
The businessman mentioned how earlier this year, there appeared to be a brash of plane crashes across the country. A Leerjet plane crashed Feb. 10 at Scottsdale Airport, killing its 60-year experienced pilot, Joie Vitosky, 78. Only nine days later, two died in a midair collision Feb. 19 near Marana Regional Airport, northwest of Tucson.
At the north Phoenix crash site, a few law enforcement officers stood beneath the shade of trees and talked behind yellow police tape. Meanwhile, two men carried a piece of the white, rainbow-striped aircraft. In the distance, a small plane could be heard and seen soaring over the airport against the backdrop of a clear blue sky.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Plane crashes just outside Deer Valley Airport in Phoenix
