Photo courtesy of Marshall County Sheriff’s DepartmentPerry Pipkin, with the Marshall County Sheriff’s Department, investigates the crash as a fireman assists on the scene.
Photos courtesy of the Marshall County Sheriff’s DepartmentRescue personnel (above and below) are busy at the scene of a plane crash on Friday afternoon of last week in rural Marshall County.
Pilot injured in plane crash
Law enforcement personnel, medics and other emergency workers rushed to the scene of a small plane crash in the woods near Tate Marshall Road Friday afternoon, according to sheriff Kenny Dickerson.
As rescue personnel arrived on the scene, Air Wings from Oxford was already at the pilot’s private airstrip. Air Wings had received the Emergency Locator Transmitter signal as the helicopter was headed to the helipad near Baptist Hospital. Air Wings turned back and was the first to locate the precise location of the plane in the woods, Dickerson said.
The pilot, who was trapped and suspended upside down in the cockpit by his seat belts, also had called E-911.
Emergency rescue crews received the call around 1:40 p.m. Friday, Sheriff Dickerson said.
The double-winged, yellow, single-engine aircraft was lifted up and the pilot, Gary Maidment, 73, of the 5700 block of Tate Marshall Road, was extracted from the cockpit.
Wings took the pilot to the Regional One Medical Center in Memphis, Tenn., where he remained Tuesday of this week.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration were notified of the accident Friday and personnel with FAA returned to the taped-off scene Monday this week to begin an investigation of the crash.
Dickerson said the investigation is not complete and how the incident occurred has not been determined.