Small Plane Crashes, Explodes on Runway, Injures One

Los Angeles, CAA small plane crash in Southern California has left one of the two people on board with serious injuries. The single-engine plane crashed and caught fire at 12:40 Saturday, December 11th, at Chino Airport, just 40 miles east of Los Angeles.

According to Federal Aviation Administration spokesperson Ian Gregor, the 35-year old student pilot was practicing takeoffs and landings when the accident happened. Specifically, he was doing "touch-and-go" manoeuvres, where a pilot lands, rolls and takes off again without stopping.

When firefighters dispatched from the Chino Valley Fire District arrived at the scene they found that the pilot and his instructor had gotten themselves out of the aircraft, spokeswoman Massiel Ladron De Guevara told local media. "When we arrived, the plane was fully involved in fire," she said. The student pilot suffered second- and third-degree burns to 20 percent of his body.

It appears that the plane stalled, although the cause of the failure isn't known. The plane was a 1978 Mooney M20J, registered to Ground Floor Design of Tustin. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the crash.