3 sent to hospital after small plane hits truck and crashes at Langley airport
Pilot, plane passenger, truck driver taken to Langley Memorial Hospital
A plane crashed at Langley Regional Airport on Tuesday afternoon after clipping a pickup truck on nearby 216 Street as it was landing, according to local officials.
Officials say the small plane crashed at 3:03 p.m. PT after hitting the truck that was travelling on the road, which borders the airport.
Langley RCMP say the two occupants of the privately registered Cessna 182 plane — a pilot and a passenger — were injured after the plane crashed.
Russ Jenkins, deputy fire chief of the Township of Langley Fire Department, says the driver of the pickup truck was also injured. All three people have been taken to Langley Memorial Hospital, with RCMP saying the driver was in stable condition.
"Looks like both wings came off the plane, and the plane caught fire shortly after crashing," Jenkins told CBC News.
Jenkins says the pilot was able to escape the plane before it caught fire, though it's unclear how badly they were injured. An air ambulance was required to transport the pilot and the passenger to hospital.
The Township of Langley is a suburban municipality with around 140,000 residents, located about 30 kilometres southeast of Vancouver.
The Langley Regional Airport saw nearly 55,000 aircraft take-offs and landings in 2022, according to Statistics Canada data. In 2021, the airport was the 23rd busiest in the country by aircraft movements.
Liam Macdonald, a spokesperson for the Transportation Safety Board, said a team of investigators had been dispatched to the airport to determine what led to the crash.
A township spokespserson said Tuesday afternoon that information was still being collected on the crash and they did not have details to share.
Langley RCMP say anyone with more information on the incident is asked to call them at 604-532-3200.
With files from Dan Burritt and Moira Wyton