Crashed plane gets stuck in tree on the side of North Carolina’s tallest mountain
A small plane got stuck in the trees when it crashed near North Carolina’s highest peak earlier this month. Now rescue crews are working to get the plane out of the heavily wooded area near Mount Mitchell State Park, WLOS reports.
Two people were on the plane when it went down on Mount Mitchell, but neither was severely injured, according to South Toe Volunteer Fire and Rescue.
“The patients remarkably walked out to ATV’s with the assistance of Park Rangers. One patient was transported with minor injuries,” the rescue squad said on Facebook.
Rangers at Mount Mitchell State Park said they heard an explosion and saw the Cirrus SR-22 plane deploy a parachute, according to the Yancey Common Times Journal.
The Cirrus is equipped with a parachute system that, Air & Space Magazine reports, can save the lives of pilots and passengers when a small plane gets into trouble.
The plane was flying from Donaldson Center Airport in Greenville, South Carolina, to the Medina Municipal Airport near Akron, Ohio, the Times Journal reports.
“Air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane just before 1 p.m. as the plane was passing over Yancey County. The pilot reported weather-related problems just before communication was lost,” the newspaper said.
On Friday, rescue crews from around Mount Mitchell prepared to get the plane out of the woods, WLOS reports.
They told the station that the road to the top of the mountain would be closed periodically for much of Friday as they work to extract the plane from the forest.
This story was originally published August 30, 2019 at 11:56 AM with the headline "Crashed plane gets stuck in tree on the side of North Carolina’s tallest mountain."
