2 dead in North American P-51D Mustang crash in Fredericksburg.
A vintage plane is destroyed and two people are dead after a plane crashed in the parking lot of a Fredericksburg apartment complex Saturday afternoon.
A spokesperson with the Federal Aviation Administration said it involved a World War II P-51D Mustang fighter plane and happened around 3:15 p.m.
“I, all of a sudden, hear[d] something that is not right,” said Robin Walper who witnessed the crash. “It was obviously a plane. I just watched it, and I said something’s very very wrong. The right wing tip tipped further to the right, and it just started teetering over and went straight down.”
The @NTSB is investigating a plane crash in #Fredericksburg, #Texas. The @PacWarMuseum was having their November WWII Pacific Combat Program show at the time of the plane crash. Two #veterans were onboard the vintage airplane. Photos: Glenn Kropat https://t.co/oCoFuGgINj pic.twitter.com/4J9FjrJnXl
— FOX 7 Austin (@fox7austin) November 18, 2018
Justin McDonald, who owns the company that manages Friendship Place Apartments, said no residents were injured in the crash. It was not clear immediately whether anyone else was injured.
The plane crashed against several vehicles parked at a carport. The FAA said the fighter plane was destroyed and several automobiles were damaged.
Walper told KXAN she’s flown in vintage airplanes before. She has a model of the P-51 airplane, and she was an aerial photographer.
“Something wasn’t right,” she said as she recalled what she heard. “When I heard it and got out there and saw that it was flying too low, right after the right wing tipped to the right, I heard nothing, as if there was no engine, and then down, and then there was the explosion.”
The plane crashed into the parking of the Friendship Place Apartments on South Creek Street.
The National Museum of the Pacific War tweeted, two people were on the plane at the time. They both died.
Earlier, the museum tweeted that both of those people were veterans, but they corrected it and said only one of those people were veterans.
The Museum was hosting a Pacific Combat Program Saturday that started at 2 p.m., according to an event on their Facebook page.
Many people believe the veteran and another person were participating in that event.
“I really can’t wrap my mind around that too well because I am the mother of an Army solder, so that’s really difficult,” Walper said.
She also told us P-51’s are very unique planes.
“They were huge in WWII,” she said. “They were escorts of the bombers, and they also did their own recon work, and sometimes ground work checking things out. But they were absolutely required in WWII. They were a huge huge factor.”
FAA investigators are on their way to the crash site and the National Transportation Safety board will investigate as well.
