Bushmaster goes down in parking lot, both pilots and two women in one car injured

A Ford Tri-Motor/Bushmaster replica built in 1986 crashed Saturday onto Commonwealth Avenue in Fullerton (CA) immediately after a "troubled takeoff," in front of hundreds of onlookers gathered at the Fullerton Municipal Airport in Orange County.

As it crashed, it sideswipped a car. The two women in the car had minor injuries, possibly thanks to the deployment of their vehicle's airbags, while the pilot and co-pilot were critically injured with burns and bruises, the L.A. Times reported.

According to eyewitnesses, the plane veered off the runway during the takeoff roll, As the craft approached a crowd of people attending Airport Day, as well as the tower, the pilot pulled the plane into a steep climb to clear the obstacles. The plane then stalled and "nosedived" onto the busy street, hitting the car with its wing and spinning across the multi-lane road. The fuselage ended up wrapped around a concrete light standard.

"The Bushmaster, a replica of an antique passenger plane containing three Ford motors, was taking off as part of a post-maintenance test flight," Fullerton Police Sgt. Steve Matson told the San Jose Mercury News. The airport was closed for the remainder of the day while the NTSB investigated the accident.

A witness who claims to have helped the pilot free from his seat stated that the pilot was all but ejected from the plane by the force of the crash.

(Bushmaster photo at Camarillo Airshow courtesy of ANN contributor John "Janko" Lewis, post-crash photos (C) 2004 by Michael Gibbs, all used with permission)

FMI http://www.tri-motor.com/index.shtml, www.propblast.org