Outhouses cushion small-plane crash in Wash. state

[May 04, 2009]  PUYALLUP, Wash. (AP) -- A small airplane dropping from the sky after its engine failed wound up on a cushioning bunch of portable toilets -- and the pilot was able to walk away apparently unhurt.

Gary Mayor of the Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna 182 crashed Friday afternoon in Washington state after taking off from Thun Field, an airfield owned by Pierce County southeast of Tacoma.

Sheriff's spokesman Ed Troyer says the plane was about 150 feet in the air when the engine quit.

Troyer told The News Tribune that the pilot tried to turn around to land but didn't quite make it.

The plane hit a fence, flipped over and landed upside down on top of the portable toilets standing in a storage yard.

Authorities didn't immediately give the pilot's identity.

[Associated Press]

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