UPDATE: Witnesses have described chaotic scenes after a pilot was killed when his light plane crashed into a house in Chelsea.
Police said the man, John Francis Stephenson, died on impact after the plane crashed into the home near The Strand and Camp Street, Chelsea, in Melbourne’s south-east about 1.30pm on Tuesday.
Mr Stephenson, 77, was a long-time resident of nearby Hampton East, where he lived with his wife.
Herta Nebert, who was in the house at the time of the crash, was uninjured but paramedics treated her for shock. The home-built single-engine aircraft – a Van’s RV-6A that Mr Stephenson assembled in 1999 – took off from Moorabbin airport and was to return there later in the day, police said.
Acting Inspector Janine Denton said the plane was travelling south along the foreshore when it ran into trouble about 1.25pm.
“We’re told by witnesses that there was a stall of the engine of that plane and it has come down and collided with the corner of a house at the end of The Strand and ended up in a laneway.”
Police have not ruled out that the plane may have already been breaking up before it struck the house and are investigating whether it was trying to make an emergency landing.
Firefighters took less than five minutes to extinguish a small fire after the plane clipped the house.
“The pilot did a good job keeping away from the houses,” a CFA spokesman said. “He’s missed the power lines and missed houses really, he’s just collected a bit of the fence and pretty much guided his way down the laneway.”
Mr Stephenson is believed to have been an experienced pilot, who was well-known among the sport aircraft community. He had a property at Cobungra, near Omeo in the Victorian high country, where he had hosted other aviation enthusiasts.
He wrote in a sport aircraft magazine published last year about flying to Mount Hotham with other pilots from around Victoria in November 2012, and about another trip planned for last spring.
“The unusual wind conditions and down draughts made the landings different and very testing,” he wrote of the Mt Hotham trip.
“Both pilots handled the conditions with skill.”
The Stephenson family are expected to release a media statement on Wednesday.
Herta Nebert, in her late 70s, told radio station 3AW on Tuesday afternoon that the shockwaves in the kitchen pushed her forward and she landed on her knees. “I heard the engine roar and the big crash… and I saw the flames when I got up right outside the window.
“I fell on my knees and I thought, ‘My god, someone went into the house’. I was afraid to look back.”
She said while she was not injured, her cat was still missing.
Daniel Candy, from Ambulance Victoria, described the scene that paramedics confronted shortly after the plane came down as “very chaotic”.
Chelsea SES spokesman Phil Wall said he heard the crash from his house.
“I heard the plane’s motor squeal and then stop and then I heard a small bang so I rushed outside and saw smoke go up. I said to my wife, ‘I’ve gotta go,'” he said.
“The wreckage is spread all along the laneway… It’s an awful thing.”
Mr Wall said locals who saw the accident were in shock. “You never expect it to happen in your street.”
Distressed office workers at a nearby business, who did not want to be named, watched the horror unfold from their lunchroom.
One woman described the sound of the plane as it crashed as “like a bomb”.
“I just heard this loud engine noise and looked out and I saw the plane nosediving,” she said.
“It looked like it was trying to head to the water but he didn’t make it.”
