Residents of an apartment building in Herndon, Virginia, got a rude surprise on Thursday night as a Cessna 177 Cardinal crashed into their living room around midnight. The residents were asleep at the time of the crash in bedrooms adjacent to the living room when the airplane entered through the roof of the three story building. According to several reports, the airplane went down as a result of an engine failure. There were no reports of a post-crash fire. The FAA and the NTSB are investigating the cause of the crash.
NBC news interviewed one of the residents who said he heard what he described as an explosion. When he went to the living room to see what had happened, the pilot and passenger had already exited the airplane. Injuries sustained by the pilot were not life threatening, but he was transported to a hospital. The other occupant of the airplane and a woman who was in the apartment reportedly received minor injuries as a result of the crash.
The Cardinal was on its way from the Philadelphia area to the Manassas Regional Airport on a photo mission shooting infrared pictures, according to news reports.
