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Residents who live near Dekalb-Peachtree Airport often hear the sounds of planes overhead. However, West Hutchinson said that the plane he heard was different. On Wednesday morning, while sitting on his back porch, he heard a plane that sounded like it was struggling.
Hutchinson then described hearing a loud crack. He said that it was obvious that the plane had crashed, because before the plane had been loud. Now, there was only eerie silence.
A single-engine Piper-28 went down moments after takeoff, slamming into a Dekalb County townhouse. Two people were killed in the crash, but they were not occupants of the house. Wreckage from the crash scattered over a half a mile radius. The NTSB is still investigating the cause of the crash.
Hutchinson called 911 and then drove around looking for the crash site. He never saw the smoke and couldn’t pinpoint where the crash was located.
The aircraft had hit Clairmont Hills Townhomes. Six units were declared unsafe due to structural damage and fuel vapors. The Red Cross was assisting the families displaced by the crash.
General aviation accident statistics are kept and tracked by two agencies: the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration. Since the 1970s, there has been a 75% drop in the number of deaths from general aviation accidents. While the death total may have dropped, the overall rate of general aviation accidents has remained relatively unchanged. The fatality rate hovers around 1 per 100,000 hours. While corporate and business flight accidents may be decreasing, private flight accidents have risen by 20%, with the fatality rates increasing by 25% on private flights.
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