A four-seat airplane crashed on a busy Contra Costa County highway shortly after takeoff Tuesday, severely injuring an 11-year old girl as it sliced open the minivan in which she was riding, and burst into flames during the evening commute.
Miraculously, no one else was seriously injured in the crash, and the pilot and his son walked away from the charred wreckage of the Piper Turbo Arrow that littered Interstate 680 in Pleasant Hill.
“I just aimed for an open spot on the freeway and prayed,” said the pilot, Robert Curt Hatch, 43, of Grand Junction, Colo.
The girl remained in surgery at Children’s Hospital in Oakland last night after her leg was cut by the plane’s propeller as it sliced through the roof and a door of her parents’ minivan.
Hatch, witnesses and investigators said the 25-year-old aircraft lost power shortly after leaving Buchanan Airport in Concord at 4:50 p.m., forcing Hatch to make a spectacular emergency landing on the southbound lanes between Willow Pass Road and Gregory Lane.
“He didn’t have a heck of a lot of choice on where to go, especially in rush hour,” said Officer Cliff Kroeger, a spokesman for the California Highway Patrol. “It’s a miracle he set it down and survived — and there weren’t more injuries.”
Hatch, who received his pilot’s license in 1997, said he rented the six- cylinder plane from Kempton Air Service in Grand Junction last week. He said one cylinder failed as he arrived in Concord on Friday and that a Kempton mechanic had worked on the plane on Monday.
An employee of Kempton Air Service declined to comment Tuesday night.
Hatch and his son Robert Jr., 16, were on their way home after spending the Easter weekend with relatives in Concord. The pilot said he knew almost immediately that something was wrong because the aircraft began quickly losing altitude at 200 feet.
“I lost two-thirds of my power right away,” said Hatch, who moved from Mill Valley to Colorado three years ago. “I knew we were going down, and we didn’t have enough altitude to go back (to the airport). Even before we stopped, there was flame on the wings.”
Hatch said the plane was going about 75 mph when it grazed a pickup truck before landing atop a blue Dodge Grand Caravan minivan. As the wings caught fire, the three-blade propeller ripped through a passenger door like a can opener, smashing the window, shearing the vehicle’s body and slicing the girl’s leg. The van skidded 100 feet before stopping.
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