Officials have identified a man who was injured this morning when his plane crashed in Longview.
Brian Mahan, 48, of Longview was taken to Good Shepherd Medical Center with non-life threatening injuries when trying to land shortly after taking off this morning, according to texas Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Sylvia Jennings.
The Harrison County Sheriff’s Office dispatched DPS to the scene shortly after 8 a.m. after the plane crashed near a private airstrip north of the 2600 block of East Marshall Avenue in Longview.
Longview police and fire crews were also dispatched shortly after 8 a.m.
The pilot realized after taking off that heavy cloud cover would prevent him from flying and turned around to land, Jennings said.
He circled a few times looking for the airport before the single-engine aircraft hit some trees and crashed.
Traffic was slowed in the westbound lanes of Marshall Avenue in the area as crews worked to get to the scene.
Robert Hancock, who has lived in Longview all his life, said he was at a nearby welding shop when someone said a plane was going down nearby.
Hancock knew where the airstrip was, so he headed that direction before jumping a barbwire fence and trying to find the plane.
After he jumped the fence, he hunted around until he heard the pilot.
"He yelled, and I heard it. So, i took off toward where he yelled," Hancock said. "When I got there, he was half way in the plane and half way out.”
Hancock said the pilot told him to grab his arm because he did not want to catch fire.
"You're not. You're not," Hancock said.
Hancock said he then grabbed his armed and starting pulling.
"I mean what else are you going to do," he said.
At that point, Hancock said he heard the sirens arrived and started yelling so emergency crews could hear them.
"Everybody started coming back that way, and I kept yelling until they found us," he said.
Officials have not released the pilot's name.
Police said the scene has been released to the Texas Department of Public Safety and the Federal Aviation Administration.
(Culled from news-journal.com)
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