A small plane flipped upside down after making an emergency landing in a remote desert area northeast of Deer Valley Airport on Wednesday morning. Both people aboard walked away without serious injury, officials said.
Capt. DJ Lee of the Phoenix Fire Department described the outcome as “a best‑case scenario,” noting that the plane came down in an unpopulated area.
“Luckily, it landed in a place where there’s nobody here, kind of in the middle of the desert between the landfill and the highway,” Lee said. “It’s kind of one of those things, when a plane’s going to crash, you don’t really have too much say in where it’s going to crash. But again, both people were lucky enough to actually walk away from this, which is obviously the best outcome for this type of incident.”
The FAA said it will investigate the cause of the reported engine failure.
The accident is the third plane mishap in Arizona this week under federal review. On Tuesday, a single‑engine Cessna T‑41B departing from Sun Valley Airport in Fort Mohave veered off the runway and crashed into a building shortly after takeoff, officials said in an April 7 FAA statement.
According to the Mohave County Sheriff’s Office, the plane hit the side of a home near the 5000 block of Taxi Way shortly before noon. The two people aboard were taken to a hospital to be evaluated, while everyone inside the home escaped injury. The FAA said the plane “veered left on takeoff roll and struck a garage.” The National Transportation Safety Board confirmed to NTD News that it has opened an investigation into the incident.
A third crash in Arizona this week resulted in fatalities. In Marana, northwest of Tucson, two people were killed Wednesday evening after a passenger plane went off the runway at Marana Regional Airport and burst into flames, Tucson news station KVOA reported. The Marana Police Department said no other planes were involved and that the investigation will be turned over to the NTSB.