A pilot and passenger were banged up but not seriously injured when a Cessna two-seater crashed in a field near the Langley Regional Airport Friday.
The aircraft went down when attempting a landing at around dinnertime. The aircraft apparently overshot a runway and flipped over in a field on the east side of 216th Street.
“We don’t know exactly what happened to cause the hard landing a flip over,†said Bill Yearwood, regional manager for the Transportation Safety Board.
There were two people on board, both of whom were taken to hospital by ambulance with minor injuries. Yearwood said he believed they were later released.
Because the plane crashed off the runway, the airport was cleared to keep moving aircraft through the main runways. There was no impact on normal airport operations, said Yearwood.
The plane was a Cessna 150 build in 1966 and privately registered, said Yearwood.
On Monday, TSB investigators were looking to interview the pilot about what he believes may have gone wrong. The pilot is typically the best witness to help investigators determine what happened, said Yearwood.
There are three typical causes of a crash: weather and the environment, mechanical failure, or pilot error.
In the case of a minor crash that caused no deaths or serious injuries, the TSB will usually run a relatively brief investigation.
Yearwood said if any systemic issues come up, such as a problem with a part that had been properly maintained, an investigation can become larger. The goal is to prevent future accidents, and if there is a mechanical problem that could tun up in other aircraft, that would be cause for widening the investigation.