DPS: Small plane crashes near Austin Executive Airport in Pflugerville
PFLUGERVILLE, Texas — Multiple emergency units responded to a single-engine plane crash in Pflugerville Sunday afternoon.
It happened on Pleasanton Pkwy east of Toll Road 130 around 3:15 p.m.
Diedre Watson says she was driving on Pleasanton Pkwy with her two young grand children, ages five and seven, when she narrowly missed the plane that crashed between two neighborhoods.
“I just kept thinking ‘he’s awfully low,’ because he was just barely above the line of houses,” she said. “He was just on the other side of the intersection from me and my two grandkids.”
She was trying to turn in to the neighborhood to drop off her granddaughter when she pulled over to avoid colliding.
“At approximately 3:19 pm the city of Pflugerville received a call about a plane that was making an emergency landing” said Terri Toledo, a spokesperson for the City of Pflugerville and Pflugerville Police Department.
She says the plane had just taken off from the Austin Executive Airport before an emergency landing call was made and the aircraft came barreling down onto the road.
“The pilot is cooperating with the investigation and, as we mentioned, there are no major injuries,” Toledo said.
The pilot, who was the only person on board, refused treatment and is doing okay, according to police.
“Within like two minutes there were 10 people around and a couple guys who helped get him out of the cockpit because the door was stuck,” Watson said.
The plane clipped the back of a parked white SUV on the way down, shattering the back glass. Police said it was unoccupied.
Watson still felt shock hours after the close encounter Sunday but says she and her grandchildren are doing okay.
“It makes you realize what’s important about life,” she said.
The FAA is investigating what causes the crash.
Police say no other people, aside from the pilot, were injured.
