The Houston Fire Department has confirmed the pilot of a small plane that crashed near the Southwest Freeway has survived with only minor injuries.
Asst. Fire Chief Jack Williams said the pilot, who was the only person aboard the single-engine aircraft when it went down, managed to walk away from the crash. Paramedics were evaluating the pilot at the scene.
“He was very fortunate,” Williams said. “He put the plane down in a belly-flop in the field and was able to walk away.”
The pilot was not immediately identified.
The plane went down just before 7 a.m. in a field behind several car dealerships on the Southwest Freeway just north of the Sam Houston Toll Road. It erupted in flames almost immediately.
Emergency equipment was forced to stage along the Southwest Freeway service road until they could find a way to reach the downed plane. Because of the location, firefighters had to initially reach the burning plane by foot. A fire truck designed to fight rural brush and pasture fires was used to reach the scene and extinguish the flames.
Inbound traffic along the Southwest Freeway was backed up to Sugar Land as rush hour motorists watched the scene unfold.
No information on what caused the plane to go down or its destination was immediately available.
