Plane crashes into Australia Ferris wheel
An ultra-light airplane has crashed into a Ferris wheel at a small town fair in eastern Australia shortly after taking off from a nearby grass airstrip and dangled from the structure for hours.
The Cheetah S200 airplane flew into the wheel at the Old Bar Festival near Taree, about 250 kilometers (155 miles) northeast of Sydney, on Saturday and became wedged in its metalwork, AFP reported.
The aircraft lodged in the frame of the ride more than 10 meters off the ground.
A nine-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, who were on the Ferris wheel at the time of the incident, were trapped for more than an hour before being rescued unharmed.
The 52-year-old pilot and his 32-year-old passenger were forced to wait for almost three hours inside the mangled aircraft before they could be retrieved.
The pilot, Paul Cox, said he did not see the Ferris wheel before his plane hit it.
"The next thing I knew, I was stopped inside the Ferris wheel. I had no idea for a few minutes and I was just hoping no one got hurt," he said.
Local Rimian Perkins said he was nearby when he heard a noise and at first was not sure what had happened.
"I was looking at the ground, thinking I wonder where this plane is and I didn’t notice for about a minute that it was in the Ferris wheel," he said.
Perkins added, "I saw the two kids. They were fine. They were just patient. They (the authorities) couldn’t work out how to get them out."
Emergency services are using a crane to remove the wreckage of the Cheetah S200 plane from the Ferris wheel.
Air safety investigators will try to determine the cause of the crash.
Source: presstv.ir
