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Bullet-Wounded Pilot Survives Second Accident

Misfortunate banner-tow pilot crashes near Florida Gators football stadium.

A pilot out of Jacksonville, Florida, is lucky to be alive after surviving two unusual inflight accidents in one year. According to First Coast News, Graham Hill and his passenger walked away from a plane crash after the Cessna 172 from which Hill was towing a banner over a Florida Gators football game reportedly lost power.

Without much choice for an emergency landing site, Hill put the airplane down at the edge of a field where cars were parked and people were tailgating before the game. The field is within walking distance of the 90,000-seat Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville. The airplane crashed into a pickup truck. Nobody on the ground was hurt. Hill and his passenger were transported to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries, according to FCN.

The government shutdown is preventing an investigation of the accident. WUFT reported that the Alachua Sheriff’s Department is collecting data to hand over to the FAA and NTSB once the shutdown is over.

What makes this story extraordinary is that Hill had the misfortune of being in another highly unusual accident we reported on earlier this year. On New Years Eve, Hill was flying a 172 over Jacksonville with his girlfriend to watch fireworks when he was shot in the head by a stray bullet. In the YouTube video that accompanies the story, Hill describes how he handed over the controls of the airplane to his girlfriend while he attempted to control the bleeding with his jacket.

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