LIHU‘E — Two people were injured in a single-engine aircraft crash that occurred near Lihu‘e Airport on Thursday afternoon.
The plane crashed shortly after takeoff about 75 to 100 feet outside of airport property, state Department of Transportation Public Information Officer Jai Cunningham said. The incident happened shortly before 12:10 p.m.
Civil Air Patrol Kaua‘i Composite Squadron Public Information Officer Jodie Cable-Treadwell reported the pilot is a member of Civil Air Patrol. He was flying a private aircraft not on a Civil Air Patrol mission.
She attributed the crash to a plane failure.
“It was a Kona wind takeoff,” said Cable-Treadwell. “He lost power and landed at the end of the runway and went through the fence.”
First responders from the Lihu‘e fire station, state Aircraft Rescue and Fire Fighting at the airport, American Medical Response and the Kaua‘i Police Department responded to the scene of the crash. The two individuals were transported to Wilcox Medical Center.
Cable-Treadwell described the pilot’s condition on Thursday evening as “conscious, responsive, communicative and stable.”
The aircraft, identified by the Federal Aviation Agency as a Beechcraft BE77, sat behind a chain-link fence near the Ocean Course at Hokuala at 2 p.m. Thursday. It was badly damaged, with one wing snapped in half.
The identities of the individuals were not released by Thursday evening.
Cunningham reported the plane belonged to a tenant, who regularly flies out of the airport. The crash did not affect commercial flights.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are leading the investigation into the crash.
This is the third aviation accident to occur on island this year.
On Feb. 22, a military-contracted helicopter crashed during a training mission at the U.S. Navy Pacific Missile Range Facility at Barking Sands, killing four people. And on March 20, two men were killed when a Civil Air Patrol plane flying in poor weather conditions crashed in Kalalau Valley.
The pilots in the March crash were both longtime Civil Air Patrol members and experienced pilots with about 100 years of flight experience between them.
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Guthrie Scrimgeour, reporter, can be reached at 808-647-0329 or gscrimgeour@thegardenisland.com.
