MARANA, AZ — Pilot Tommy Glover says his day started just like normal, doing the job he’s been doing for the past 30 years, but everything changed in just a few seconds.
“Oh, I thought it was the end…yeah…all I see is rooftops…you know…and I’m heading toward them,” Glover said.
Glover, says Tuesday morning he was just about done applying herbicide to a field west of a Marana subdivision—that’s when he says the plane, a Piper PA 36 designed for seeding, crop dusting and other agricultural work, lost power.
TUESDAY COVERAGE | Small plane crashes in Marana neighborhood
“I was making a pass and was turning over the homes to come back into the fields and I pulled up and I was going to try to initiate the turn and then I had trouble with the airplane,” he said.
He says this all happened within seconds. “By the time everything played out, I really had no control of the aircraft,” Glover said. “It was just settling into the homes”
The plane landed nose-down between two homes on Crooked Peak Trail, just south of Lambert Lane during the morning of Tuesday, October 9. No one was badly hurt. The crash is currently being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board. A final report, with probable cause of the crash and contributing factors isn’t expected for another 12-24 months.
Glover says it was a freak accident and doesn’t know what went wrong. He says the plane is almost completely destroyed but is so thankful everyone was okay.
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