A small plane ended up upside down on the frozen surface of Thompson Lake in Otisfield, Maine, on Friday evening, prompting a federal investigation but leaving the pilot unharmed.
In a statement to NTD News, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) confirmed a Piper PA-18 “nosed over after landing on a frozen lake in Otisfield, Maine, around 5 p.m. local time on Friday.” Officials confirmed that only the pilot was on board and that the Federal Aviation Administration had opened an investigation into the incident.
The pilot told responding officers that the plane had flipped after he attempted an emergency landing due to what he described as a mechanical problem, the Maine Wire reported. Despite the plane coming to rest inverted on the ice, officials said the pilot walked away uninjured.
A spokesperson for the Oxford County Sheriff’s Office in Maine did not return a request for comment from NTD News prior to publication.
The FAA has not yet released further details about the possible mechanical issue or what may have led the plane to lose control before it touched down.
In Arizona, two people were hospitalized after a Cessna 177B went down late on Saturday in a remote area northeast of San Carlos, authorities said. The San Carlos Apache Police Department confirmed that first responders located both occupants and airlifted them to hospitals in the Valley, where they were listed in stable condition. The FAA said it would investigate the crash.
Other recent incidents under review include a private luxury plane crash that killed four when an Epic E1000 turboprop crashed near Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and a Cirrus SR22 crash in South Carolina which killed a passenger and critically injured the pilot after an apparent engine failure.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board generally analyze small-plane accidents for evidence of pilot error, mechanical failure, and weather factors, a process that can take up to two years to complete.