The Plane Just Missed Her Home: 'Truly a Miracle'

Father, son, and Labrador retriever heading to Fla. for spring break walk away from accident unscathed
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 9, 2020 6:07 AM CDT

A father and son's vacation was marred right from the get-go when their plane just missed a Florida airport runway and crashed into a tree in a local homeowner's yard. Per the Okaloosa County Sheriff's Office, 47-year-old Jason Dougherty and his son Caleb, 22, both from Kansas, were flying into the Destin Executive Airport on Sunday morning, a Labrador retriever along for the ride, when their Beechcraft Bonanza aircraft didn't make it to the runway, instead crashing into a tree in a nearby residential area. The men, who KAKE notes were heading to Florida for spring break, told authorities they'd started to experience engine trouble as they approached the airport. Somehow, though, they "survived without a scratch," per the sheriff's office.

The men's plane just barely missed hitting the Destin home of a woman identified only as Micki, and she says she got home from a morning walk just after the crash. "As I'm walking up to my house, I see all these people climbing over my fence and I'm like, 'Hey, what's going on? What are you guys doing?'" she tells WEAR-TV. "They said a plane crashed." She notes if she'd been home just a few minutes earlier, she would've been sitting in her yard watching the planes land, as per her usual weekend routine. "Thank goodness everyone was OK and no one was hurt," she adds. "Truly a miracle." The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board will investigate. (More plane crash stories.)

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