In the United States, an unusual accident occurred in which the co-pilot fell and died while preparing for an emergency landing due to a breakdown.
The pilot who was with him at the time stated that the co-pilot seemed to have escaped from the broken plane and jumped off himself to fall into the lake.
According to local media such as NBC News on the 1st, at 2:40 pm on the 29th of last month, a 10-seater small cargo plane with only the pilot and co-pilot on board made an emergency landing on the runway at Raleigh-Durham International Airport, North Carolina.
At that time, the pilot revealed to the control tower that one wheel of the plane did not come out and landed on the fuselage.
The plane slid off the runway and came to a halt as it entered a nearby lawn.
When firefighters arrived and retrieved the wrecked aircraft, only one pilot was found. In addition to the pilot at the time, co-pilot Charles Hugh Crooks, 23, was also on board, but his appearance could not be found.
However, the pilot brought up an unexpected story. Crooks himself jumped out of his aircraft during the flight.
The pilot stated that Crooks jumped from the aircraft during the flight to fall into a nearby river as the plane was about to crash land in an accident.
In fact, Crooks was found dead the day after the accident in the back yard of his home in a residential area 48 kilometers from the airport.
A resident near the house where Crooks crashed said in an interview with the local media, “At that time, there was a loud ‘thump’ from the backyard.
At the time, it was reported that Crooks’ body did not appear to be wearing a parachute.
But for now, there are only statements from the pilot. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are investigating the details of the accident, believing that it cannot be ruled out that Crooks may have fallen from the plane in an accident.
The plane that crashed was a C-212 transport aircraft built in 1983 by the Spanish company CASA.
The pilot suffered minor injuries and was treated at the hospital and discharged.