Back on June 30th a small Cessna tried landing on the highway in Santa Ana, California as it goes up in a fireball. The plane had lost an engine almost immediately after leaving John Wayne Airport located right next to the crash. Right after takeoff, the pilot Francis Pisano was heard yelling, “Hey, we got a mayday! We got a mayday!”
Officials at the tower responded by informing him and his wife, Janan, that they were cleared to land back at the airport but that their gear appeared to be up.
“Yeah, I know, we’re still trying to get a little altitude,” Pisano replied. “I lost my right engine.”
That was the last that was heard of them before they crashed.
Amazingly enough, both Pisano and his wife “survived the crash after an off-duty fire captain from Avalon pulled from them the wreckage,” as reported by the Los Angeles Times. And even more shockingly, there were no traffic accidents because of the crash.
And this despite the debris field from the wreckage measuring “about 150 feet long, crossing over both the north and south-bound lanes,” according to the NTSB, with the left-wing tip tank and main landing gear being found in the northbound lane and the left elevator and right-wing tip tank being found on the southbound lane.
“About 150 feet down the debris field in the southbound lane was the main wreckage,” the investigative agency added. “The main wreckage was partially consumed by fire and both engines and propellers.”
“The fire burned the airplane like a toy in less than five minutes,” said Nga Dieu, a bystander who witnessed the crash and subsequent rescue from her car.
Surviving that horrific crash was a true miracle.
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