A small plane crashed into a car in Bowie, Maryland, on Thursday, but no one was seriously hurt, leading the county fire chief to call the outcome "a miracle."
Two people were in the plane and two people were in the car. The two in the car were taken to a hospital but are expected to be OK.
“We’re happy to hear they weren't hurt seriously or anything like that,” said Michael Garrah, the passenger on the plane.
He and the pilot, Warren Tolson Jr., refused transport to a hospital but later drove themselves there.
"A miracle today here in Prince George's County," Fire Chief Benjamin Barksdale said. "Amazing that [there was] no fire, no fuel spillage at all, so yes, we're very fortunate today."
Tolson was attempting to take off from nearby Freeway Airport when the plane crashed on eastbound Route 50 at Church Road, clipping an oncoming vehicle.
“It was a little bit of an instrumentation issue on the takeoff, and made a decision to abort the takeoff,” Tolson said.
Crews responded about 11:20 a.m. Chopper4 footage shows that one wing of the plane was severed and came to rest on the roadway next to a silver sedan. Debris was scattered on the road.
The driver of the sedan was a 29-year-old D.C. man; his passenger was a 31-year-old Baltimore resident.
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Records show the plane, a 1978 fixed-wing single-engine aircraft, is registered to a resident of Greenbelt, Maryland, and was licensed to fly.
Tolson said he has been flying planes since 1990 and this was his first crash.
The cause of the crash has not yet been determined. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were heading to the scene to investigate, police said.
Reports of the medical treatment for the four people involved fluctuated as officials handled the incident. Earlier Thursday, fire officials said the two people from the car were being taken to a hospital for precautionary measures and the two people in the plane had refused medical treatment. However, police later said that all four were being treated at the scene.
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