{"id":459987,"date":"2026-10-08T09:58:31","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T09:58:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/459987\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T09:58:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T09:58:31","slug":"you-just-want-to-help-witness-recounts-deadly-fort-worth-plane-crash-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/459987\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;You just want to help&#8217;: Witness recounts deadly Fort Worth plane crash"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">One of the people <a data-ylk=\"slk:who tried to come to the rescue of a pilot in a single-engine plane crash;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wfaa.com\/article\/news\/local\/fort-worth-plane-crash-hicks-airfield\/287-b6b677ea-13f7-4d54-bd64-98cef4891784\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">who tried to come to the rescue of a pilot in a single-engine plane crash<\/a> told me he knew right away there was little he could do.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Heartbreaking video shared with WFAA shows the single-engine aircraft on fire after something went wrong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It happened so fast,&#8221; plane crash witness A.J. Avila said, &#8220;I couldn&#8217;t get a hold of [911] because apparently there was a huge line of people trying to reach out to 911 as well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">New home construction supervisor A.J. Avila showed us just how close the plane crashed in front of him Wednesday morning. Fort Worth firefighters responded to the crash near Hicks Airfield at around 10 a.m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A.J. noticed the plane in the air just above West Bonds Ranch Road in Fort Worth moments before it went down yards away from where he and team members from his crew were.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The single occupant, a male pilot, did not survive after his Lancair IV P aircraft clipped nearby power lines and crashed to the ground, the Fort Worth Fire Department said in a news conference.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Avila saw it all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;As soon as it hit the ground, it was just a huge explosion. I couldn&#8217;t believe my eyes at first, so I got in my truck, ran over there,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Parts of the aircraft, including a portion of the wing, scattered across an empty field toward the Wellington subdivision near a neighborhood boundary wall.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It was like a movie,&#8221; Avila said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Fort Worth police kept West Bonds Ranch Road blocked as repair crews worked on the damaged power lines.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Although the crash left Avila a little emotional after trying to help, he said he is anxious to learn from the official investigation what went wrong. The NTSB told WFAA that preliminary information indicates the pilot may have experienced engine issues and turned back toward the airport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;It&#8217;s just like you&#8217;re kind of shaken a bit, and you see everyone just trying to help,&#8221; Avila said, &#8220;Instincts kick in and you just want to help in any way, but at that point, you&#8217;re useless. You&#8217;re useless; you can&#8217;t put that type of fire out.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the people who tried to come to the rescue of a pilot in a single-engine plane&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-459987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}