A small plane crashed into a busy intersection in Victoria yesterday, colliding with three vehicles in an incident captured on the dash camera of an eyewitness's truck. According to a report by KPRC 2, Tony Poynor, a driver and salesperson from Bacliff, Texas, described the twin-engine Piper PA-31 struggling to maintain altitude, with its shadow briefly skimming an overpass wall before the crash, "I thought the plane was going to hit me. I saw the shadow on the wall of the overpass and knew it was too close," he stated.
Following the accident, Poynor, who escaped the incident unharmed, hurriedly parked to offer aid to the victims, he witnessed the pilot, estimated to be between 70 and 80 years old, conscious but trapped beneath wreckage Poynor stepped in to help him free from the bounds of the clipped wings and said, “He was in shock." He added, "We tried to get him out of there, but neither one of the doors were going to work at that point," an aside given to KPRC 2.
Meanwhile, the Victoria Police Department noted in a KXAN update, confirmed that five individuals were involved in the crash, with four transported to hospitals. Three sustained non-life-threatening injuries, while one needed to be evacuated to a separate medical facility.
As traffic was disrupted by the tangled wreckage and the rush of emergency responders, local police announced the Texas Department of Public Safety would spearhead the investigation into the crash, with the Federal Aviation Administration's oversight also confirmed. The incident occurs on the heels of another aviation misfortune, with a small plane crashing in a field after leaving Smithville Crawford Municipal Airport, the FAA affirmed via KXAN.
Poynor reflected on the event, expressing a sense of the fragility and impermanence of safety on any given day, "blessed for everybody else that was there that they survived, and, you know... walk away from this thing," he conveyed to KPRC 2.
