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'Miraculous escape' for pilot and passenger as plane crashes in Melbourne backyard
- From: AAP
- August 08, 2010
Plane crashed into a house on Lower Dandenong Road, Mordialloc. Picture:Tony Gough Source: Herald Sun
A PILOT and her passenger have walked away from a light plane crash in a Melbourne backyard just hundreds of metres from the Moorabbin Airport runway.
The single-engine four-seater plane clipped the roof of one house and crashed in the backyard of a neighbouring home on Lower Dandenong Road, Mordialloc, about 3.30pm (AEST) yesterday.
The 28-year-old female pilot from Hawthorn and her male passenger, 70, who were on an aerial photography mission, were able to climb from the wreckage unhurt.
"There was no one in the house at the time, and the pilot and passenger did not suffer any serious injuries," a police spokesman said.
Paramedics say it was miraculous they were able to walk away from the crash.
"The plane has clipped the roof of one house and landed in the backyard of an adjoining house," said Ambulance Victoria spokesman Ray Rowe.
"It was a miraculous escape - (the pilot and passenger) were shaken from the experience but not injured.
"They were checked over by paramedics and did not need to go to hospital."
The aircraft had taken off from Moorabbin Airport about 2.15pm and was coming in to land at Moorabbin Airport, but it came down short of the runway after its engine failed, police said.
The police spokesman described the plane as a write-off.
"It will never fly again," he said.
"It's ended up against a wall and between the house and a swimming pool.
"It's badly damaged, yet the house has just lost a few tiles from the top of the roof."
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau will investigate the accident.
In April a 72-year-old pilot was trying to land his Piper Warrior craft at Moorabbin when the plane clipped trees and landed at the nearby Capital Golf Club course.
In December last year, medical entrepreneur Dr Geoffrey Edelsten survived when his helicopter crashed on his first solo flight at the airport, southeast of Melbourne.
A trainee pilot on his first solo flight from Moorabbin Airport died in August 2008, when his plane clipped another aircraft and spiralled out of control to the ground, narrowly missing Cheltenham East Primary School.
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