The pilot, identified as 25-year-old Jared Calvert, reported that he lost power and couldn’t gain altitude. He attempted to turn back and land, but hit the top of a line of trees and crashed the two-seat, single-engine Piper Cub into a vegetable garden off of Chicken Bristle Road at 3:45 p.m.
He was able to walk away from the plane, which landed on its top, and call 911. Calvert was walking and talking at the scene, according to OSP Lt. Douglas Eck, but was taken via ambulance to Miami Valley Hospital for minor injuries.
Calvert restored the 1946 Piper J-3 Cub and has been flying it across the country since April, according to posts on his blog at rangerairfield.org. The plane was nicknamed the Barn Cub because it sat in a barn unused for 59 years, according to the site.
The FAA will make a final determination as to what caused the crash.
The property owner, Jim Noelker, said he was just glad to hear that the pilot was OK and that the plane missed his house. Noelker, an employee of WHIO-TV's parent company Cox Media Group Ohio, said no one was home when the plane crashed. Neighbors called him when they saw that the plane had gone down, he said.
“These big old oaks saved our house, really,” Noelker said about the trees the plane hit. “Because he would have gone right into the house.”
Don Young lives two doors down and heard the crash while he was working in his yard, but thought it was just a neighbor doing work in his garden.
He and other neighbors said small planes fly over all the time because of the small grass airfield nearby.
“I heard a noise... but when I saw the cops, that’s when I figured out what happened,” Young said.
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