Chris Cappella

ccappella@eveningsun.com

Crews responded to the scene of a plane crash near Gettysburg Regional Airport Saturday afternoon.

The pilot, an 87-year-old local man, was not injured, said Gettysburg Fire Department Chief Hurshel Shank.

The man -- whose name has not yet been released -- took off from the runway but had engine failure, Cumberland Township Police Chief Don Boehs said. He attempted to make a U-turn when he crashed into trees near the runway, he said.

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The plane landed nose down about 50 feet off the ground, Shank said. The man called police after the crash with a cell phone he was carrying, Boehs said.

The pilot was attempting to fly from Gettysburg to Clearview Airpark in Westminster, Maryland to get more fuel for the plane, Boehs said.

The single-engine plane faced nose-down for about four hours while rescue officials figured out how to free the pilot, Shank said. The plane was in a stable setting and the pilot was alert, so there was no rush to get him out, he said.

"He was in very good spirits the whole time there," he said. "He was conscious, alert and oriented the whole incident, which lasted almost four hours. I think by the end, he was a little anxious to get out, as we all were to get him out of the situation he was in."

Police, who arrived on scene around 12:30 p.m., originally thought they would use a Maryland State Police helicopter to fly above the plane and send a man down with a cable to get the pilot out, Shank said. However, the wind from the helicopter could have made the plane too unstable, so they decided otherwise, he said.

Frederick County Advanced Technical Rescue, assisted by crews in York and Adams counties, used ladders to climb from the ground to the plane, Shank said. After cutting branches from around the plane down, rescue workers put the man in a sling and lowered him to the ground, he said.

Photos: Plane crashes into tree near Gettysburg-area airport

Emergency medical services were evaluating the man and planned to transfer him to Gettysburg Hospital as a precautionary measure, Boehs said. He suffered a hand injury, he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration and local Civil Air Patrol units will investigate the scene and determine how to get the plane down, Shank said.

Officials from Gettysburg Regional Airport were not immediately available to comment.

In what's turned out to be a busy week in Adams County, with fatal fires in Littlestown and Cumberland Township, spirits from officers are still good, Boehs said.

"The officers are doing well," he said. "We have a very good working relationship with the fire companies and ambulance rescue crews around the area."