The pilot of a medical transport plane has escaped with minor injuries after an emergency landing in a rail corridor.
Emergency services were called to Hillcrest, in Brisbane‘s south, at about 6:06am on Friday after reports a freight-carrying aeromedical aircraft had made the forced landing.
The aircraft, a Piper PA-31-350, departed from Western Sydney‘s Bankstown airport earlier that day tasked before reporting a mechanical fault while on approach to Archerfield Airport, in Brisbane’s south.
The pilot and sole person onboard, a Brisbane woman aged in her 30s, was forced to make an emergency landing along the rail corridor.
She was taken to Logan Hospital with minor injuries .
The female pilot, 30, of a medical transport plane has escaped with minor injuries after an emergency landing (pictured) in the southeast Queensland rail corridor
Flight details from FlightRadar24 show the aircraft cruising at an altitude of about 9,000 feet for a majority of the flight until it reached the Border Ranges National Park in northern NSW.
However, the plane slowed down and descended sharply about 15 minutes after crossing the national park.
The pilot then made two 90-degree turns before crash landing in a rail corridor at a speed of about 120km/h, the aircraft sustaining severe damage.
‘At 6am there was a descending noise of a plane like you would expect and then a big crash,’ Stuart Davies, who lives nearby to the crash site, said.
Read Related Also: Meet TikTok Audrey Peters Parents: Jenny And Mark Peters!
‘You could tell it was an aeroplane… it was a really loud bang, you knew it wasn’t a car.
‘I got out of bed and jumped the fence and made my way as quick as I could.
‘She (the pilot) was limping and I was trying to get her away from the plane and then up over the train tracks with a sore leg and then I got her over the train tracks to safety.’
The aircraft was severely damaged after crash landing at a speed of about 120km/h, however the pilot was taken to hospital only as a precaution
Emergency services arrived at the scene within 10 minutes of the crash and were surprised to see the pilot not seriously injured.
‘It was a really good outcome for the circumstances,’ James Van Den Bogert, Balmoral Ambulance station operation supervisor, said.
‘When I first arrived I saw the plane adjacent to the rail line and it looked like there was significant damage to the front cockpit area of the plane and the right engine appears to sustain some severe damage as well.’
Anyone with any information or relevant footage has been asked to contact the police.
The medical airline, AirMed, said they are working with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and assisting the Australian Transport Safety Bureau with investigations.
