EVERETT — Two small planes crashed in unrelated incidents minutes apart Friday afternoon at Paine Field.
There were no reports of serious injuries or deaths.
In the first, a small plane crashed in a hard, extended landing. Two men were aboard the Cessna 172, practicing touch-and-go landings around 3 p.m., when the plane made a rough touchdown on a runway and kept going south through a fence, said Kent Patton, a spokesman for Snohomish County, which operates the airport.
Aid crews responded to find a plane on a road, with damaged wings and a badly bent propeller. The men looked to be in their 20s. One of them suffered minor injuries. An ambulance took him to a local hospital, as a precaution, Patton said.
The plane ripped out part of the airport’s security fence. Police were on scene detouring traffic.
So far it’s unclear why that plane crashed.
Less than an hour later, as crews were investigating, a second small plane crashed on the runway when the pilot apparently failed to put down the landing gear, Patton said. There were no reports of injuries.
The National Transportation Safety Board gave permission to move the wreckage of the second crash, Patton said, so that the runway could open as soon as possible.
Counting the two on Friday, there have been three plane crashes near the airfield in the past week.
Caleb Hutton: 425-339-3454; chutton@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @snocaleb.
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