A pilot died after a light plane crashed into a house in Chelsea, about 30km south-east of Melbourne.
No one else was believed to have been injured in the crash at about 1.25pm on Tuesday, police said. The plane hit the corner of the house and caught fire on impact. It ended up in a laneway behind the house and damaged two other vehicles.
Witnesses told police they heard the engine of the plane stall before it crashed.
Andrew Delaney, from the Country Fire Authority, said the pilot appeared to have bravely directed his plane away from a nearby busy shopping strip and children’s park.
“[It’s a] very brave, very brave activity that he conducted,” he said.
“If you have a look he’s missed the power lines so he’s done a very good job and missed houses really. He’s just collected a bit of the fence and pretty much guided his plane down the laneway.”
Delaney said the plane’s fuel caused the fire that lit up the fence and also set part of the house on fire.
“We’re told by witnesses that there was a stall of the engine of that plane and it’s come down and collided with the corner of a house, and ended up in a laneway behind that house,” acting police inspector Janene Denton said.
The single-engine light plane, which was travelling south along the Chelsea foreshore, may have been a homemade aircraft, Denton said.
Megan Johnston said she was working in her office nearby when the crash happened.
She ran around the corner to see an elderly woman standing in shock outside her house, which was starting to catch on fire.
“There were flames on the outside of the house and there were flames just starting to lick the kitchen,” she said.
“The house was full of smoke basically. A lot of really thick, black, toxic smoke.”
Johnston said the woman told her there was no one in the house except for her cat, so she went inside to try to find it.
“The lady’s kitchen was just like literally a bomb had gone off,” she said.
“I just kept going up and down the stairs trying to locate her cat, but I couldn’t stay up there for long because of the smoke.”
The woman inside the home was not injured, Denton said.
She said debris was spread along the Chelsea beach and warned locals to be careful.
Images of the scene were posted on Twitter.
Chelsea plane crash 5 min ago pic.twitter.com/w5I4tbkr7F
— john kovac (@thealien_earth) October 14, 2014
UPDATE: One dead, after a plane crash in Melbourne's south-east: http://t.co/bslPQNZYMp #9News pic.twitter.com/IouNgPvsgq
— Nine News Melbourne (@9NewsMelb) October 14, 2014
A video posted on YouTube by 3AW Radio showed residents assessing the damage in the aftermath of the crash.
Roads around the house were blocked off and drivers were advised to avoid the area.
