A small airplane crashed into a field not far from the Collegedale airport Monday evening.
No fatalities have been reported, Collegedale spokesperson Bridgett Raper said. The single occupant of the aircraft is OK, she added.
It's not clear what caused the crash, as it's still under investigation, Raper said. Photos show the airplane ran into a nearby wooded area before coming to a stop.
Collegedale resident Pattie Hernandez said she was about to go for a walk with her son, Chris, when she heard the airplane flying overhead.
"It was making this loud noise, like it was - somebody was banging on metal," she said. "I knew it wasn't normal, but he was going toward the airport."
She said the plane disappeared for a moment, but then it was back.
"For a second, I wasn't sure if it was the same person because the noise had definitely ended and it was just silence," Pattie Hernandez said. "I noticed it was really low, and I was thinking, 'He's too low, he's too low!' And next thing, I hear the bang right behind my house."
Her daughter-in-law, Cassie Hernandez, said in a Facebook message that she wasn't outside when the crash happened but could hear the loudness of the plane as it flew over.
"The little prop planes usually make noise so I didn't notice anything off about it," she said. "But then my mother-in-law started shouting about something and when we went outside she told us a plane crashed and we walked over to check it out."
Cassie Hernandez said one of their neighbors had been outside working on a car when the crash happened, and that neighbor got to the scene first. She said the pilot seemed unharmed.
"He seemed to know what he was doing," she said of the pilot. "It could've been so much worse, so thank God he's OK."
Contact Rosana Hughes at 423-757-6327, rhughes@timesfreepress.com or follow her on Twitter @HughesRosana.
A small airplane landed in a field and crashed into a wooded area not far from the Collegedale airport Monday evening. / Photo contributed by Chris Hernandez