LONDONDERRY — The cockpit door of a plane that crashed a hundred feet from a home in Londonderry was found in the backyard of a Manchester residence, according to Manchester police.
The house is approximately six miles away from the crash site at 5 Colonial Drive, Londonderry.
There will be a preliminary report from The National Transportation Safety Board that will be released in 30 days following the crash. A more expanded report, including probable cause and other contributing factors, will be part of the final report, which won’t be finished for a year to two.
The flight, Wiggins Air Flight 1046, crashed in a residential neighborhood in Londonderry on Friday, Jan. 26. The flight was reportedly a small cargo shipment en route to Presque Isle, Maine, according to Director of Aviation Ted Kitchens at the Manchester-Boston Regional Airport.
At approximately 7:30 a.m. on Friday, Londonderry fire and police officers received calls that there had been a plane crash on Colonial Drive. One of the callers was the pilot himself, who first responders reported was conscious after the crash and the responders’ efforts to free him from the mangled cockpit.
The plane, a Beechcraft 99, a small, two-engine turboprop aircraft, crashed into the woods behind a single-family residence. According to flight data, the pilot did not make it more than five air miles from Manchester Boston Regional Airport before coming down.
“He was probably 70 feet from a single-family residence, right on where the lawn of this residence met the tree line of the woods,” Londonderry Fire Chief Bo Butler said at a press release on Friday. “So it was very, very close.”
The flight had about 250 gallons of fuel on board that was cleaned up by New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services’ HazMat crew. Despite the crash and the fuel, there had been no fire.
There were no injuries to anyone in Londonderry or in Manchester besides the pilot.
The pilot has yet to be identified by officials. He was taken to a local hospital in New Hampshire after being freed from the wreck. Shortly thereafter, he was transferred to a Boston-area hospital. As of Tuesday evening, there’s no new update on the condition of the pilot. The NTSB has reportedly moved the wreckage to a Westfield, Massachusetts, facility for the ongoing investigation.