Dad Got His 7-Year-Old Daughter Out Of A Burning Airplane

A fundraising campaign to assist a Navy Reserve training pilot and his 7-year-old daughter recover from an airplane accident has topped $175,000.

The accident occurred near Taylor Municipal Airport (T74) northeast of Austin, TX. The pilot, 41-year-old Navy Reserve CRR Todd "Horny" Hornbuckle and his daughter Madelynn had departed from Corpus Christi in a Piper Cherokee to travel to Austin to watch Hornbuckle's oldest son run in a cross country race. They were on final approach to Taylor when the accident occurred.

Television station KRIS reports that the plane went down in a wooded area, and a post-impact fire ensued. Hornbuckle reportedly shielded his daughter from the flames, but suffered severe burns over 50 percent of his body. Her burns were less severe.

The station reports that, according to the girl's mother, she said when she woke up in the hospital that "Daddy covered me while he was on fire."

A crowdfunding campaign has been established on GoFundMe, which has raised over $175,000 of its stated $200,000 goal. Justin Gittins posted on the page that "there was only one small opening in the tree line and that’s where Horny put his plane, right between two tree trunks ripping the wings off but sparing the fuselage, something only a handful of pilots could have done, saving his life but most importantly, his 7-year old daughter Madelynn’s."

CDR Hornbuckle is a Navy Reserve instructor pilot with more than 4,000 hours flying various military aircraft, according to the Reserve Component Training Air Wing Two website. After leaving active duty in 2007, he began training new-hire Delta pilots in 757 and 767 ER aircraft.

The NTSB has not yet posted a preliminary report on the accident.

(Image from GoFundMe site)

FMI: GoFundMe https://www.gofundme.com/2syvgsb8