A small plane, allegedly suffering an engine snag, went down near Bellevue's Newport neighborhood on Tuesday, surprisingly resulting in no injuries, police reported. The Bellevue Police and Fire departments were alerted to the crisis around 5 p.m. when the aircraft, identified as a Cirrus SR-22, was seen with a deployed parachute in the vicinity of the 6500 block of 127 Place Southeast. The pilots, engaged in a training flight from Renton, managed to avert a catastrophe by activating the whole-plane parachute, guiding their craft to a controlled descent into the woods, according to The Seattle Times.
Both individuals on board walked away unscathed, an outcome Bellevue PD’s Seth Tyler termed as fortunate given the plane could have landed on homes rather than the wooded patch it ultimately found. "It's fortunate the plane came down in an area where there were no homes, it didn’t land on anyone," Tyler was quoted in KING 5. An eye-catching parachute and a softly-touched-down plane could have spelled disaster on another day, in a neighborhood packed with some 5,600 residents per square mile.
While there were no flames to douse, Bellevue fire department spokesperson Heather Wong stressed the downed aircraft posed no current fire hazard. The Bellevue Police, on the other hand, called in the state Department of Ecology to handle a minor fuel leak, which was less than 100 gallons. Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were notified, with the latter preparing to investigate the mishap as reported by KIRO 7.
The local residents, caught between concern and curiosity, witnessed an abnormal spectacle. Thirteen-year-old Kiera Perez, living nearby, first thought the loud bang from the plane was something far more sinister. "We heard like a loud bang, so we though it was like gunshots or something so we got scared," Perez recounted to KING 5. She along with others witnessed the occupants of the plane emerge unharmed, conversing and walking, a testament to the quick-thinking deployment of the plane's parachute system, known as a CAPS, and no doubt, a dash of sheer luck.
