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Power Co. Employees Discover Plane Crash Victim

Courtesy photo from Hardee County Emergency Management

While investigating the cause of a power outage near Wauchula recently, two Peace River Electric Cooperative employees discovered a single-engine plane had crashed and was upside down in an orange grove with an injured pilot trapped inside.

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Special to Highlands Today

Published: December 11, 2008

WAUCHULA - Employees of Peace River Electric Cooperative (PRECO) made a startling discovery when looking for the cause of a recent power outage.

Van Crawford and J.R. Gough found that power lines were torn down from four poles along a stretch of Dansby Road near Wauchula. A visual search of the area revealed a single-engine airplane lying upside down in a nearby orange grove. They arrived shortly after the Dec. 7 crash.

Crawford called emergency personnel who responded within minutes, then he and Gough remained with the conscious pilot until help arrived. The pair assisted emergency workers in lifting the 1,000 pound homemade aircraft, allowing the pilot to wriggle free of the wreckage on his own.

The pilot was on his way from Leesburg to Fort Myers early on the morning of Dec. 7, when the plane encountered mechanical problems and went down.

"When we first saw the plane, we headed for it and talked about the possibility of what we might find," Crawford said. "We were happy to find out that he was O.K.

"He kept asking us to get him out of the plane, but we knew we couldn't for his safety. We just stayed with him and tried to keep him calm."

The pilot was transported to nearby Florida Hospital Wauchula for non life-threatening injuries.

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