Small Plane Crashes Into House, Pilot and Homeowner Survive
The plane landed just feet from where the homeowner was sitting.
— -- A small plane crashed into a house in Haddam, Connecticut, on Saturday afternoon, spiraling out of control and diving through the roof of Norman Hannenbaum's home. The plane landed just feet from where he was sitting inside the house.
"I was sitting on my sofa...then I hear this thump," Hannenbaum told ABC News. "I have a ceiling that has these boards, they all started falling. I was so shook up and was two to three feet from where boards started falling."
He ran outside and one of his neighbors told him a plane had just hit the house.
An eyewitness told ABC affiliate WTNH, "All of a sudden it just banked and went right down."
At approximately 4 p.m., troopers and firefighters responded to the scene. Officials from the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) arrived to investigate the crash.
The single engine plane's sole occupant, 46-year-old pilot Benjamin Temple of East Rockaway, New York, was airlifted to Hartford Hospital. Temple was seriously hurt, though emergency responders say they expect him to recover. No one on the ground was hurt.
The FAA, state police and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection are investigating.