Jeep Cherokee Blog
East Palo Alto Airplane Wreck
So I wake up as I normally do to go to work. I am walking down the hall of my house here in East Palo Alto and all of a sudden I hear a crash and then see a flash of light as if lightning struck and then a louder crash that I could feel. My roommate jumped out of his room and we tried to figure out what it was. We then ran outside and saw the smoke coming up in front of our neighbors house. There were people running around screaming about how the fire department wasn't there yet! Are you kidding me? It had been less than 5 minutes since the crash happened! Panic had struck this little town of East Palo Alto. I got as close as I dared and snapped some photos of the wreckage. There was a house just north of mine across the street that had smoke pluming out the back. I couldn't see any flames but it was obvious the house had been struck. To the west of me was where the real action was taking place. The fuselage and the wing that was still attached were burning up in front of my neighbor's house! The corner of a white SUV was on fire and three other cars were up in flames. This part of the plane had come to a stop when it slammed into the three cars that were parked in close proximity to each other. Most of the people running around were looking for ways of helping. But a few were just adding to the chaos.
The house that was struck by a chunk of debris and was smoking from the back was evacuated quickly and everybody got out okay. The owner of the house was screaming about losing her home. A neighbor I was talking to mentioned how she should be happy she is alive. I feel sorry for her loss of possessions and her home. What a horrible thing to experience.
I still hadn't heard anything about the house with the flaming wreckage. I had heard the owners weren't at home. But there were a bunch of cars out front which took the impact of the plane so somebody must have been there. At this point the firemen had created a perimeter and wouldn't allow us to cross the line. I watched as the firemen put out the flames of the wreckage and cut a hole in the roof of the burning house with a chainsaw. They made quick work of putting out the fires. There were about 4 fire engines there. Only two seemed to be spraying water but there were firemen everywhere.
Standing around I started to talk to some people and found one nice lady had been in the home with the burning wreckage out in front of her house. She and her family lived there. She heard the wreck and tried to get her family out of the house but the way through her front door was blocked by flames. She and her husband(I think) and a few children went out the back of the house and was helped over the fence by some neighbors. I was happy to hear they made it out of the house unscathed. The house looked as though it would be okay after a little work on the front. They are very lucky.
It has been a crazy morning. I am sitting here thinking about how lucky I am and how unfortunate the events of the morning had been. The news has said there were three men in the plane. All the men died. They may have been executives from the automaker Tesla. It is really a sad story. My prayers are with the families that are now without a home or a husband or brother.
It sounds like this plane lost control after it struck a communication tower nearby. A wing had broken off and struck the first house that caused the smoking from the back and the other half of the plane kept going and settled once it hit the three cars in the front of my neighbors house.
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