An emergency response got underway mid-morning in the wake of a plane crash just outside of Houston, Texas.
Texas Department of Public Safety confirmed the incident in a field in the southeast corner of Waller County, which is not too far from the Houston Executive Airport, a public facility next to the city’s Energy Corridor that mainly caters to corporate passengers.
According to Waller County Sheriff Troy Guidry, 21 people, which included 18 passengers and three crewmembers, were on board and all made it out safe. Two people were sent to the hospital.
The youngest person on board is a 10-year-old, officials said.
Fortunately, no one was killed, Guidry added.
Photos show black smoke coming from a field around the scene of the crash.
From above the scene, SkyEye captured firefighters attempting to douse flames of the wreckage, with the aircraft’s tail intact.
Since the incident, FAA preliminarily identified the aircraft as a McDonnell Douglas MD-87, adding that the plane rolled through a fence and caught fire in a field while attempting to depart the executive airport just after 10 a.m. CT.
The federal agency also confirmed that all passengers and crew on board exited the aircraft safely.
Eyewitness News has also learned the plane is registered under the name of J. Alan Kent, who is the corporate owner of Flair Builders, a Houston-based custom homebuilder.
Flair Builders, who confirmed the incident with Kent on board at the time. Two sources additionally confirm that the plane was headed to Boston for a trip to the AL Championship Series games. The destination was confirmed by DPS.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation.
Meanwhile, utility company CenterPoint Energy said an outage impacting more than 1,800 customers near the scene of the crash was caused by the plane taking out an overhead powerline during takeoff. Since the outage, power was restored to all but 17 customers.
It’s not immediately known whether the powerline contributed to the crash.
A passenger jet with 21 people aboard crashed while attempting to take off from an airport in Houston, Texas.
Miraculously, only one person was reported injured.
Television images showed fire fighters spraying water onto the burning remains of the plane, which came to a halt across a track in a field, surrounded by trees and bushes.
The fuselage was reduced to ashes, with only the tail section surviving as black smoke poured from the wreckage.
“Fortunately all 21 passengers including three crew members were reported as safely evacuated from this twin-engine jet before it was fully engulfed in flames,” the Katy Fire Department said in a statement.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-87 plane was taking off from Houston Executive Airport, Brookshire, bound for Boston when it crashed, officials said.
Local reports said it was taking fans to watch a play-off baseball game between the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday evening (US time).
Tim Gibson, director of the Waller Harris county emergency services, said the passengers and crew “were stunned, they were very, very stunned, but they did all self-extricate.”
“We’re always expecting the worst but hoping for the best — in today, we absolutely positively got the best outcome we can hope for on this incident,” Mr Gibson told a press conference.
He said fire crews had extinguished the fire “after substantial effort” to control burning jet fuel.
Waller County Judge Trey Duhon said on Facebook that the plane was departing to the north when it had trouble gaining altitude, crossed a road and came to rest in the field.
Officials said one passenger was a 10-year old child, and one person was treated for back pain after the crash.
A manufacturing certificate for the twin-engine MD-87 was issued in 2015. It had a 172-seat capacity.
A plane crashed at take-off on Tuesday in Texas, with all 21 passengers and crew on board scrambling to safety before the aircraft burst into flames.
Television images showed firefighters spraying water onto the burning remains of the plane, which came to a halt across a track in a field, surrounded by trees and bushes.
The fuselage was reduced to ashes, with only the tail section surviving as black smoke poured from the wreckage.
“Fortunately all 21 passengers including three crew members were reported as safely evacuated from this twin-engine jet before it was fully engulfed in flames,” the Katy Fire Department said in a statement.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-87 plane was taking off from Houston Executive Airport, Brookshire, bound for Boston when it crashed, officials said.
Local reports said it was taking fans to watch a play-off baseball game between the Houston Astros and the Boston Red Sox on Tuesday evening.
Tim Gibson, director of the Waller Harris county emergency services, said the passengers and crew “were stunned, they were very, very stunned, but they did all self-extricate”.
A Boston-bound plane crashed while taking off from Houston Executive Airport, but all aboard escaped with no major injuries.
The McDonnell Douglas MD-80 airliner “rolled through a fence and caught fire in the field,” just after 10 a.m., the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
The plane with 21 people aboard was chartered to Boston for Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, in which the Houston Astros will face off against the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park later tonight. It attempted to depart from the airport in Brookshire, which is part of the Houston metropolitan area, Waller County Judge Trey Duhon told said
Though no major injuries were reported, two people had minor injuries before firefighters put out the flames engulfing the MD-80, officials said.
One person had respiratory issues, Texas Department of Public Safety spokesman Sgt. Stephen Woodard told reporters at the scene.
Another person reported back pain, Duhon said in a Facebook post.
“The information we have at this time indicates that the plane did not attain altitude at the end of the runway and went across Morton Road, coming to a rest in the field just north of the airport, where it caught on fire,” Duhon said.
Tim Gibson, emergency service district director for Waller-Harris Emergency Service District 200 told Click2Houston.com the outcome was better than expected.
“Anytime you have plane that doesn’t make a landing on the runway like its supposed to, we’re always expecting the worst and hoping for the best and today, we absolutely, positively got the best outcome we could hope for,” Gibson said.
The National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash, and the FAA will assist.
The crash caused power outages in 1,806 homes in the area, but utility crews restored power to all but 17 customers by noon, Click2Houston.com reported.
The Waller County Office of Emergency Management and WCSO are aware that there was a plane crash at Houston Executive Airport earlier this morning involving an MD-80 aircraft that was taking off from the Airport heading north.
The information we have at this time indicates that the plane did not attain altitude at the end of the runway and went across Morton Road, coming to a rest in the field just north of the airport, where it caught on fire.
Early reports indicate that all 19 passengers and crew safely exited the aircraft and there is a report of 1 injury with a passenger reporting back pain.
At this time, numerous first responders are on scene and the plane is on fire and burning off jet fuel. That is the extent of information we have at this time.
Emergency crews in Texas are responding to a plane crash outside of Houston.
the plane crashed in Waller County near Katy, 29 miles west of Houston. The scene is near the Houston Executive Airport.
Waller County Sheriff Troy Guidry said 21 people were on board the plane but all made it out safe. One person was taken to the hospital with back injuries.
No deaths have been reported.
Firefighters could be seen dousing the flames of the wreckage. As you can see in this video below from ABC13, the tail of the plane remains intact.
