MERIDIAN TWP. - The Jaws of Life were used to pull a couple from a small two-seat plane in a quiet neighborhood near Lake Lansing and Abbott roads late Wednesday night.
Witnesses say they heard a loud crash as the plane hit several trees before crashing into the backyard of 6047 Harkson Drive in Meridian Township.
Bob Boyd, the 55-year-old director of maintenance for Capital City Airport, and his wife, Kathy, were returning from Pennsylvania with their dog when his single-engine Cherokee plane went down at about 9:40 p.m., said Robert Kolt, spokesman for Capital City Airport.
The Boyds were rushed to Sparrow Hospital where their conditions were unknown, but both survivors were talking and conscious as they were being extricated.
As paramedics removed Kathy Boyd from the scene, she kept asking about her dog to make sure it was OK.
The dog apparently escaped serious injury.
Kolt said the pair received lacerations and one of the Boyds suffered a broken arm.
Boyd had called the airport minutes before to inform air traffic controllers that the aircraft was out of gas and he was looking for a place to land.
“We received word they were low on fuel and going down in the area of the old Davis airport,” Kolt said. “Bob is a very skilled pilot - that might have (helped him survive the crash).”
Boyd has been the director of maintenance for the airport since 1995, Kolt said.
Broken glass lay all around the crash site. The plane’s left wing was crumpled on the ground while the right was almost detached.
Darlene Weltzer, who lives across from where the plane crashed, said she didn’t know it was a plane that had gone down until she looked outside.
“I thought it was thunder, but I couldn’t imagine it being thunder because there wasn’t a cloud in the sky,” she said.
By 9:45 p.m. East Lansing police and paramedics were on the scene using the Jaws of Life and bolt cutters to extricate the couple from the twisted wreckage surrounded by broken pines and shrubbery.
Meridian Township police were the first to arrive on the scene. East Lansing and Capital City Airport police cars lined the street.
More than 25 people worked to rescue the couple from their plane.
