Kylie Whitcomb A Long Beach plane crash that took place in October was extremely strange compared to most other plane crashes because it involved someone on the ground.
What happened to you when you went out walking your dog? Most people don’t ever expect to answer that question with “a plane hit me.” When you hear that a person got hit by a plane during a dog walk, you might think of a teenager being a little careless with a remote-controlled plane, but that wasn’t the case. In this instance, a woman got hit by a plane that is large enough for two people to sit in it and fly together.
A Heartwell Park emergency landing took out a deaf woman who survived the plane crash
A routine afternoon at a Long Beach park turned into a once-in-a-lifetime nightmare when Tiffany Harrison was struck by a small aircraft making an emergency landing. Harrison, who is deaf, had no warning as the home-built two-seater descended behind her on the soccer field at Heartwell Park. She survived with serious injuries, including a fractured spine, broken pelvis, and a leg wound that required surgery. Her dog walked away without a scratch, and the pilot also survived. It seems Harrison took the brunt of this crash.
A worried sister or juicing up the lawsuit
The extent of Harrison’s injuries suggests she has a long road of recovery ahead, which leads to a worried family, including her sister Brittany McFall. You can imagine how protective McFall might be of her sister, especially considering Tiffany is deaf and has now been literally hit by a plane while walking on the ground. McFall told ABC7 news:
“This is very traumatic for her, and she’s probably going to have PTSD because a normal person wouldn’t just…walk in the park and have this freak accident. When we got the phone call that she got hit by an airplane, we couldn’t even believe it because it’s something that doesn’t happen.”
Something out of the movies
During movie action scenes, you might see a small plane crash with a survivor and no injuries, but this isn’t a movie. Although you never expect to get hit by a plane while walking on the ground, we can see that it can actually happen. The experimental aircraft accident in California brings into question whether or not homemade planes should be allowed in the sky, but even these small planes go through rigorous testing and safety checks to ensure they are safe for flight at certain altitudes and distances.
The pilot lost power, leading to the Long Beach plane crash
The pilot told nearby air traffic controllers that he had lost power and declared an emergency, leading to the landing in the field. Unfortunately, Harrison did not hear the plane coming and couldn’t get out of the way fast enough to avoid being hit. The pilot was flying a route to French Valley in Riverside County, making a stop in Long Beach, but this stop was certainly unexpected.
Should this single incident cause all small aircraft to be grounded
If you’re a family member of Tiffany Harrison, you might want all small experimental aircraft grounded, and that would certainly be understandable. Outside of that group, it seems like a huge amount of overkill to disallow all small aircraft from flying because of one incident. This Long Beach plane crash is horrible and has left Ms. Harrison with a long road to recovery, but the aircraft itself was not illegal or unsanctioned.
“They are certified by the FAA, there’s hundreds of them flying over the Southern California area all the time, and we have a hangar at Compton Airport where we build them.”
– Dennis Lord, hangar manager
The crash could have been much worse
Considering the plane that crashed into Ms. Harrison is large enough to carry two people and fly hundreds of miles at a time, it could have taken out many more people had they been in the area. Additionally, nobody was killed during the crash, not even the dog being walked at the time. Still, this Long Beach plane crash was tragic, but it truly was an accident caused by the engines failing, which can happen on any machine.
As Tiffany Harrison heals from her injuries, we can hope she will make a full recovery and be able to enjoy life as she did before the crash. This crazy and unique incident isn’t something anyone expects to happen and is really only expected on a movie screen, but Ms. Harrison lived it in real life, but she surely wishes that hadn’t been the case.
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