‘Kind of brutal’: Witnesses describe airplane crash near Woodlake Airport

TULARE COUNTY, Calif. (KSEE/KGPE) - An airplane fell out of the sky just outside the Woodlake Airport Saturday. “I just seen it from the corner of my eye, just coming down,” neighbor Benjamin Varela said. “I went out to the road and looked, and this big plume of black smoke was just up right over here,” neighbor Terry Thompson said. The Tulare County Sheriff’s Office and Fire Department responded to the crash near Road 204 just before 11 a.m. Officials would not provide details about what caused the crash or what happened to the pilot Saturday, but witnesses say the small plane went down fast. “It looked like it stalled. And it was just like, coming down, you know, losing power,” Varela said. “I've actually flown in and out of the Woodlake Airport, but I don't remember ever hearing or seeing any crashes in this area,” Thompson said. First responders quickly blocked off surrounding roads when they arrived at the scene. News crews could not see the airplane from outside the blockade. Thompson says she has friends and family who live near the crash site. When she tried to go check on them, she says the sheriff’s office told her it wasn’t safe. “I do have another friend that lives over there. And I sent her a text message and said, ‘Hey, how's it going?’ And she said, their power's out and they're expecting it back by about 10:30 tonight, which is kind of brutal,” Thompson said. The Southern California Edison website confirmed that outage, blaming a “foreign object” in the equipment. They expect power to come back by 5 a.m. Sunday. The Federal Aviation Administration took over the investigation Saturday afternoon. They have not said what caused the crash or whether the pilot survived.