Plane crashes off U.S. 1 in Vero Beach, lands on railroad tracks

VERO BEACH — A flight instructor and his student were practicing "touch-and-go" landings Monday morning near the Vero Beach Regional Airport when the engine failed and the plane crash landed on railroad tracks off U.S. 1.

No one was injured. The single-engine 1979 Piper Cherokee plane registered to Paris Air Inc. in Vero Beach, went down about 10:45 a.m. near 36th Street, in the 3500 block of U.S. 1, according to police.

Touch-and-go landings are a training exercise that includes conducting takeoffs and landings multiple times in a row without coming to a complete stop in between each, Vero Beach police spokeswoman Megan DeWitt said.

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"At a second attempt at a landing, the engine stopped," DeWitt said.

The pilot, Sean Malone, 28, was flying the plane at the time of the incident, said Cory Richter, assistant chief and spokesman for Indian River County Fire Rescue.

Malone was able to make an impromptu landing on the tracks, he said.

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"They were going to land at the Vero Beach airport," Richter said. "The engine cut out on them."

Officials with Paris Air, a flight-training school based at the Vero Beach airport, declined to comment about the crash Monday, or make Malone or his student, Hishim Eid, available for questions, citing an open investigation.

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Police, who contacted Florida East Coast Railway to report the plane was blocking the rails, reported a train was not due in the area, anyway, for three hours after the crash.

Both lanes on southbound U.S. 1 were closed about 12:30 p.m. as a crane removed the plane from the tracks, placed it in a truck and it was returned to Paris Air in the 3300 block of Airport West Drive. The road was reopened by 1:50 p.m.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.