LITITZ, Pa. — Over the weekend, a single-engine plane crashed in central Pennsylvania, leading to injuries for five people aboard. Of these, three individuals have been sent to a specialized burn center for treatment, officials informed on Monday. The injured were initially taken to Lancaster General Hospital, where two were subsequently airlifted to the Lehigh Valley Health Network’s burn center, while another was transported via ambulance. Two of the passengers were fortunate enough to be discharged on Sunday night.
The crash resulted in the aircraft catching fire shortly after taking off from Lancaster Airport and subsequently being consumed by flames. The incident occurred when the plane descended into the parking lot of Brethren Village, a retirement community located in Lititz, approximately 75 miles west of Philadelphia.
A spokeswoman for Lehigh Valley Health Network, Jamie Stover, remarked on the privacy protocols that prevented her from confirming details about the patients at their facility without prior identification provided by the authorities.
The Beechcraft Bonanza plane involved in the crash is registered to Jam Zoom Yayos LLC, based in Manheim, near the departure airport. The crash, which happened just after 3 p.m., miraculously caused no fatalities, nor injuries to civilians on the ground, according to the Federal Aviation Administration. Reports from FlightAware indicated that the aircraft was bound for Springfield, Ohio.
The National Transportation Safety Board has launched an investigation in collaboration with the FAA, which has dispatched personnel to the site for examination and documentation purposes. The investigators are set to scrutinize factors such as the pilot’s history, the condition of the aircraft, and the environment of the operation. This comprehensive investigation will include assembling communication recordings between the pilot and air traffic controllers, reviewing flight data, collecting witness testimonies, examining surveillance footage, and assessing maintenance logs of the aircraft.
A preliminary report is anticipated within a month of the crash, though the complete investigation could extend over a period between one and two years.
Efforts to obtain a comment from the Lancaster airport’s operations director were unreturned as of Monday.
Eyewitness Brian Pipkin recounted his experience, stating that while driving, he observed the plane suddenly shift leftward. “And then it went down nose first,” he recalled, describing the subsequent explosion as an “immediate fireball,” following which he alerted emergency services.
Audio footage from air traffic control depicted communications from the pilot, who reported an issue with an open door and expressed the need to return for landing. An air traffic controller guided them to make the landing but shortly thereafter urged the pilot to “Pull up!” A voice on the recording later confirmed that the aircraft had come down in the vicinity of the parking lot near the terminal.
