Plane Crash-Lands, Striking Pedestrian

A woman walking through a park in Long Beach on Tuesday afternoon unexpectedly found herself in the path of a small airplane making an emergency landing on a soccer field. Fire officials say the incident happened shortly after 4pm, when the aircraft—described by KTLA as "possibly experimental"—came down in Heartwell Park, about a mile and a half short of the Long Beach Airport. First responders arrived to find the plane resting on its belly with broken landing gear. Aerial footage showed the fuselage largely intact, with debris scattered around a badly cracked rear wing.

A friend of the woman said she'd been walking her dog in the popular park when she was struck, per KNBC. The woman, who is in her 40s, and the pilot, an elderly man who had to be extricated from the aircraft, both suffered moderate injuries, per KTLA. They were transported to a local hospital and are reported to be in stable condition. Officials have not released further details about the circumstances leading to the crash or the identities of those involved, but the investigation is ongoing. "The good news is it could have been a whole lot worse," Mayor Rex Richardson said Tuesday, per the Long Beach Post.