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Crashing airplane kept going, going
By LISA GREENE, Times Staff Writer DUNEDIN -- John Long was flying his 1997 Piper Cherokee south toward Clearwater on Friday when the engine started to go. He had to land. Fast. As the plane descended about 11:40 a.m., it snapped a power line over Patricia Avenue, scaring the wits out of 10-year-old Adam Sesler, who screamed for his dad. The plane then clipped a minivan taxi, knocking off the tip of a wing and shattering the taxi's back window. "I just heard a bang, and then another bang, and then I was hit with glass, and then I realized it wasn't a car," said Cassandra Goldfluss, 15, who was riding in the back seat.
The plane tore through the intersection of Patricia and Beltrees Street, then headed for William and Helen Roddin's Chevy Malibu. "We saw this airplane coming at us, and we couldn't go anywhere," William Roddin said. The plane glanced off the Roddins' left rear window, streaking it white, and kept going. Donna Brownlee, driving north just behind the Roddins, swerved out of the way, into a parking lot. "It was rocking back and forth. ... It was terrifying. It was just terrifying," she said. The plane bounced off the roadway, and Christine Meents, driving north and hemmed in by a guardrail over a ditch, had nowhere to go. She ducked as the plane slammed into her Hyundai. She suffered a gash on her forehead and a concussion, but remarkably neither she nor anyone else was severely hurt. His plane now stopped, Long jumped out and yelled to Brownlee and her daughters. "He said, 'Run! There's a gas leak, it might blow!"' Bill Walker, driving just behind Meents, stopped and ran to help. Meents was trying to get out the passenger door, and Long already was at her side trying to help. "I held her feet, and he held her arms," Walker said, and the men helped her out. Adam's father, Chris Sesler, also ran to the car. He saw "a waterfall of fuel" pouring from the plane, into the car and onto Long as he helped Meents. "That guy was the bravest guy I ever saw," Sesler said. Firefighters arrived and sprayed fire-retardant foam on the twisted remains of the plane and the car, locked together on the east side of Patricia Avenue, between Highland Animal Hospital and Nielsen Media Research. Joy Harris ran from her office across the street to check on Long. He wrote his family's phone number on a paper napkin: "Tell them I'm okay, please." Harris began counting blessings. "It could have been a lot worse," she said. "He said it started spitting and sputtering, and then it stalled out." Meents got out her cell phone and called her former mother-in-law, Lois Meents. "She just put her head down when it slammed into her, or she might not be here," Lois Meents said later. "It could have decapitated her." In the cab, Goldfluss pulled out her cell phone and called her mother. "Mom, sit down," she told her. "I'm okay. Are you sitting down? Keep sitting down. A plane literally fell out of the sky and hit the taxicab." Meents, 46, and Long, 44, were taken to Bayfront Medical Center, where they were treated and released. William Roddin, 83, was treated and released at the VA Medical Center at Bay Pines. Long, a Clearwater police corporal, did not want to talk about the accident. He has been flying for several years, said police spokesman Wayne Shelor. Long keeps his plane at the Clearwater Executive Airpark, just a few miles south of the crash site, said Marianne Pasha, spokeswoman for the Pinellas Sheriff's Office. Friday morning, Long was off duty and flew the plane north to the Tampa Bay Executive Airport to get a cost estimate on painting the plane. He was coming back when his engine began acting up, Pasha said. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the accident, Pasha said, and her office doesn't anticipate filing charges. She talked with Long Friday afternoon, when he came back to see the wreckage. "He said he was happy more people weren't injured, and very grateful," Pasha said. Friday afternoon, Lois Meents headed down to Patricia Avenue to check out the damage for herself. She stared at the crushed wreckage of her daughter-in-law's car and listened as strangers told her how lucky everyone was. "I could see her car underneath the plane," Meents said. "And I said, 'Oh my god."' -- Times staff writer Michael Sandler contributed to this report.
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