SOUTH MIDDLETON TOWNSHIP -- A single-engine plane crashed Monday night in the middle of Forge Road, just outside of Carlisle.

While the pilot was seriously injured and transported to Hershey Medical Center, Cumberland County press information officer John Bruetsch said he did a good job making sure no one else was hurt.

“The pilot did a great job putting it down in the middle of the street,” Bruetsch said. “No homes or lines were hit.”

The plane crashed in a quiet residential neighborhood at the intersection of Forge and Hunter roads, where homes line both sides of the street just outside of Carlisle.

But just what caused the single-engine Cessna to crash shortly after 11 p.m. Monday will be the subject of an FAA investigation, which is expected to begin Tuesday morning.

Bruetsch said fire and emergency crews responded, and found the plane in the middle of the road with a male pilot inside.

It took crews about 15 minutes to extract the pilot, who was the sole occupant, from the plane before he was flown by helicopter to Hershey Medical Center for treatment.

His name has not yet been released. There was no indication of where the pilot was flying to or from.

Though seriously injured, Bruetsch said the pilot was conscious, and was talking to emergency crews the whole time.

Though the cause of the crash will be the subject of further investigation, Bruetsch said it initially appeared the plane may have experienced some sort of mechanical difficulty, and attempted to use the straight Forge Road as an emergency runway.

Chris Davis, who lives several houses from the crash site, said his whole house shook. He and other neighbors ran out to see what happened, and were shocked to find a plane in the middle of the road.

Davis said he was the second person on the scene. The pilot was conscious, he said.

"He wasn't in real good shape,'' said Davis, adding the pilot told him he had run out of fuel. "He didn't even know what state he was in.''