Hawaii Police Department reports that a small plane with one occupant crash-landed in O’okala on Thursday (April 19), injuring the pilot.
At 10:45 a.m., North Hilo officers responded to the O’okala Dairy road, near the 30-mile marker of Route 19 (Hawaii Belt Road), where they found the pilot—a 68-year-old Hilo man—seriously injured.
He had attempted an emergency landing onto a newly planted corn field after his two-seat single-engine propeller airplane reportedly lost power due to engine failure. Fire Department rescue personnel extricated him from the plane and airlifted him via helicopter to North Hawai’i Community Hospital for treatment of his injuries. He was then airlifted by plane to Queen’s Medical Center in critical condition.
An investigator from the Federal Aviation Administration is expected to arrive at the scene later today.
