ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — A young pilot is lucky to be alive after her plane crashed in a marsh just hundreds of feet from people’s homes in St. Augustine.
The plane crashed in Redfish Creek, less than two miles north of the St. Augustine Airport.
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“My heart’s still racing,” neighbor Mary Strong said.
Strong was coming home from pickleball Thursday morning when she got a call she’ll never forget.
“A neighbor called and said she’d heard an explosion. I didn’t know what was going on. I was scared the house had blown up,” Strong said.
RELATED: Airplane crashes into waterway near St. Augustine airport
She immediately drove home and learned a small plane had crashed in the marsh behind her house.
“The aircraft departed off Runway 31 about 7:50 this morning. Upon departure, the aircraft had some trouble,” Courtney Pittman, Interim Executive Director of the St. Augustine Airport, said.
Pittman said the pilot is in her early 20s and is a student at a local flight school. The Florida Highway Patrol said the pilot was taken to the hospital with minor injuries.
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When St. Johns County Fire Rescue arrived, they used a kayak at a nearby dock to paddle out to the pilot and bring her back to shore.
“It’s heroic, I don’t know any other words,” Chris Naff, public information officer with SJCFR, said.
It’s a kayak that Strong knows all too well.
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“That was your husband’s kayak?” Action News Jax’s Madison Foglio asked.
“Yes,” Strong said. “We have not used it in months, but I’m happy it came in handy to get that pilot out of there.”
FHP is investigating the crash. We are working to find out what caused the plane to go down.
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