A 70-year-old pilot was injured July 18 when his single-engine plane crashed into two mobile homes located in the Parkway Village Trailer Park in Maryland City.
According to the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, the pilot was conscious and alert following the crash at 10:15 a.m., but suffered from serious, non-life-threatening injuries. He was transported by ambulance to the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.
No other injuries were reported and no fire was evident, but the plane's fuel leak posed a safety hazard. The Fort Meade Fire and Emergency Services, which assists at two to three aircraft emergencies per year, responded to the incident.
Firefighters from Howard County and Anne Arundel County also responded to the crash. A total of 48 firefighters were at the scene.
The plane, which took off from Suburban Airport in Laurel, struck a tree after it failed to gain sufficient altitude, and crashed into the trailer park.
"The wreckage of the plane itself was very contained," Fort Meade Fire Capt. David Hilliard said. "The first wing that struck the first trailer sheered off, so the wing was stuck inside the first trailer. Then the fuselage and the other wing were mashed up against the second trailer. Within the space of a 50-foot circle, all the debris was contained."
Hilliard said bystanders removed the pilot from the plane after they could smell fuel from the leak.
"I think they made the right choice in pulling him out because there was a high likelihood it could have caught fire," he said.
No one was in the two trailers when the plane went down. According to the Anne Arundel County Fire Department, one trailer was extensively damaged and considered uninhabitable. The second can be salvaged.
Fort Meade sent two engines to the scene; they were the third and fourth to arrive. The units monitored the air to search for flammable vapors.
While the plane was not on fire, fuel leaking from the Beechcraft Musketeer aircraft had spread throughout the area including underneath a trailer. The firefighters sprayed foam onto the fuel to suppress the fuel vapors.
"There's always a hazard of the electrical system from the aircraft itself or any kind of ignition source inside the trailer because we did find explosive-level flammable vapors in two of the trailers," Hilliard said.
Crews conducted the initial work for roughly 30 to 45 minutes, Hilliard said, but the crews were on the scene for more than three hours.
"Once the hazards were taken care of and the patient was off and transported, it was treated like a crime scene," he said.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation with the Maryland State Police and the Federal Aviation Administration
Social Sharing