FLINT -- Four men amazingly walk away from a crash after their plane had an emergency landing at Bishop International Airport in Flint Wednesday.
Bishop spokesperson Pat Corfman reports the Piaggio P-180 suffered loss of power in one engine around 9:40 a.m. while flying over Michigan. The plane contacted Bishop International Airport and requested an emergency landing. The airport cleared the runways immediately for the plane.
When the plane started to come in, it was going too fast and couldn't slow down.
When it landed, the force of the landing caused it to flip over.
"He used up most of the runway to actually get the plane on to the ground. Once he did, it was too fast to be controlled, flipped over and off the runway," says Corfman, who added that this was the first injury-accident at Bishop in the 13 years that she has worked there.
Airport officials say the two pilots and two passengers were strapped in, and were upside down when emergency crews arrived at the scene. The four men were taken to Hurley Medical Center, with minor injuries.
The four men had rented the plane and were traveling from St. Petersburg, Florida to West Bend, Wisconsin.
The airport shut down temporarily after the crash, but reopened 30 minutes later.
Wednesday evening, another Piaggio P-180 landed at Bishop airport. Two men got off the plane and headed for the crash site, at the south end of the aiport complex.
The National Transportation Safety Board did not move the wreckage until late Wednesday night.
The wreckage will likely be housed in a hangar at the airport, until the NTSB finishes their investigation.
A website that captures scanner audio has posted the conversation with the pilot and dispatch on their website. You can hear the full audio here, however we do have to warn that this audio has not been verified as containing all accurate information. The items that come across scanners are often preliminary and are not verified as accurate.
