DETROIT – The small plane that crashed Monday night on a neighborhood street in Detroit has been forced to make an emergency landing at least one time before, according to a report by the National Transportation Safety Board.
In the report, the NTSB said the plane made a forced landing on Feb. 12, 2011, in Trenton after it suffered a mechanical failure and the engine lost power.
“During the forced landing, the nose landing gear collapsed when it contacted "heavy snow and unimproved terrain," resulting in substantial damage to the firewall. A postaccident examination of the engine revealed that one of the connecting rods had separated from the crankshaft,” the NTSB said.
Police Chief James Craig said the 18-year-old pilot was towing a banner and was forced to release it when the plane ran out of gas. On the way down, the plane struck power lines.
A woman on the ground was hit and shocked by a live wire. She is in serious condition after suffering a shock.
"I look over there and that's when I saw the lady hit by the wire and she was on the ground," witness Davion Dearman said. "The man in the plane, he jumped out and ran over here with us. They did CPR on her and she came back because they put her on the stretcher and hooked her up to the breathing machine."
The pilot was taken to the hospital as a precaution, but was not seriously hurt.
Here's where the crash landing occurred: