A woman was struck by a small plane that plummeted into a busy California park in an attempted emergency landing, according to authorities and reports.
The small aircraft crash landed into a soccer field at Heartwell Park in Long Beach around 4 p.m., according to the Long Beach Fire Department.
“When units arrived, they found one small aircraft on its belly with broken landing gear,” fire officials said, noting the plane’s fuselage was intact.
The aircraft collided with a woman in her 40s who was on the field during the freak landing. She was rushed to the hospital alongside the elderly male pilot, who had to be retrieved from inside the plane by firefighters, authorities added.
Both individuals miraculously suffered only moderate injuries and were in stable condition, officials said.
Preliminary information indicates the plane began its journey in Compton, traveled to French Valley, and returned to Compton, where the crash happened, authorities said.
The aircraft was scheduled to land at Long Beach Airport, only a mile and a half northeast of the soccer field, the Long Beach Post reported.
Aerial footage of the wreck showed authorities examining the cordoned-off area where pieces of debris littered the ground near the severely cracked left wing, KTLA reported.
Photos showed the aircraft with a propeller on the back, two smaller wings near the nose, and two larger wings in the rear, the Long Beach Post reported.
Soccer practice continued on the field after the wild crash, the outlet said.
“The good news is it could have been a whole lot worse,” Mayor Rex Richardson said at the start of Tuesday’s City Council meeting, according to the outlet.
“And we are fortunate in that there have been no fatalities, no serious injuries. It was a glider [that] did an emergency landing, pretty rough landing on the field at Heartwell Park,” Richardson said.
The FAA did not respond to a request for comment from The Post.
The investigation remains ongoing.
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