Gunshot hits plane’s gas tank as student pilot is landing in Massachusetts, he says
A student pilot was practicing landing a small plane when he said a gunshot hit the aircraft’s gas tank in Massachusetts, according to WCVB.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot “reported a bullet hole in the gas tank” in the single-engine Cessna 172 after landing at Gardner Municipal Airport on Monday, April 25, according to a statement sent to McClatchy News.
While the plane was still roughly 700 feet in the air, Dan Black and his flight instructor heard a popping sound followed by the scent of gasoline, he told Boston 25.
“We saw that fuel was coming out of our wings, so we knew we had an issue with the left tank,” Black told the outlet. “And we parked the plane and dumped all the fuel out into buckets. And then during that process, we noticed there was a hole in the wing.”
Massachusetts State Police are investigating the incident, according to the FAA.
State police spokesman Dave Procopio told McClatchy News that “a pilot reported what appeared to be a gunshot or shots at the plane during descent,” in a statement. He added that authorities discovered damage to the plane, but it’s unclear whether the cause was gunfire as of April 26.
“It’s insane. It’s extremely scary and disturbing that someone would shoot at an airplane randomly in the sky,” Gardner Aviation Services owner Dominic Scalera told CBS Boston.
Airport maintenance told WCVB that the bullet pierced three layers of metal before entering the gas tank.
Procopio said state police are investigating the incident with Templeton police.
“Whoever did this is an idiot,” Scalera told WCVB. “It’s pretty simple. You do not, if you know gun safety at all, you do not shoot at an animal unless you have a license and are going to eat it and you do not randomly shoot a gun you shoot at a target. That is the safe way to handle a gun and this is not safe.”
Templeton is a town about 60 miles west of Boston.
This story was originally published April 26, 2022 at 6:56 AM with the headline "Gunshot hits plane’s gas tank as student pilot is landing in Massachusetts, he says."
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