A 76 year old pilot suffered critical injuries when his two-seat Cessna plane crashed near Lunken Airport Tuesday night. Don Elliot of Loveland is at University Hospital while federal investigators make planes to move what's left of his plane for further examination.
Fishermen on the Little Miami River saw Elliot's 1962 Piper Cherokee PA28 clip some trees before crashing 2 miles northeast of Lunken, near the Reeves Golf Course, around 9:45 p.m. Tuesday. Part of the wing and other debris ended up in the tree tops, the rest was in a pile on the ground.
Rescue workers had to use golf carts to get to the wreckage site. Inside they found the Elliot conscious and talking. He had been ejected from the plane. He was able to tell authorities that he was traveling alone. He suffered extensive facial injuries.
A spokesperson from the Federal Aviation Administration says officials don't know if this plane was taking off or landing at Lunken or if it was just flying in the area. There is no flight plan on file for the trip and the pilot was not in communication with the tower at Lunken.
The FAA says the plane is destroyed and it will take weeks to determine a cause of the crash. Six investigators made it to the scene at 9:30 a.m. They planned to remove the plane and transport it somewhere else to examine it further.
