A North Carolina pilot headed home from Palatka on Wednesday, a day after his small plane made a hard landing in a Putnam County backyard.
David Thomas, 64, survived with minor injuries.
The single-engine Cirrus crash-landed just after 11 a.m. Tuesday on Dogwood Lane in Palatka.
Neighbors said the pilot was heading from Raleigh, North Carolina, to Longwood, Florida, to pick up his mother and take her back north. He drove home to North Carolina on Wednesday.
Homeowner Richard Jackson, who helped pull Thomas from the plane after it landed in his backyard, visited the pilot in the hospital Tuesday night.
“'Thank you,' that's all he could say,” Jackson said. “His mama broke down and cried and gave me a big hug.”
The plane has been removed from Jackson's backyard, but the damage it left behind could still be seen Wednesday.
A recovery crew spent hours taking the plane apart, using a crane to finally get it out of the yard and onto the wrecker.
“They say it could possibly be repaired,” said Blake Powers with Florida Air Recovery and Storage. “I think after further inspection, that may not happen. There has been a lot of damage.”
A 30-foot emergency parachute likely saved Thomas' life, according to Florida Highway Patrol troopers and other pilots. Thomas pulled a red handle inside the cockpit to set the parachute off. It shot out of the back of the plane and slowed the aircraft down as it came toward the ground.
“After the chute is deployed, you are at the mercy of the wind. He had no control over landing here at this house,” pilot Todd Smith explained. “The design of the airplane, with the parachute, is designed to save lives. And it looks like that's what it did, so it was a good investment.”
The Federal Aviation Administration, National Transportation Safety Board and FHP continue to investigate to find out what caused the crash landing.
Powers said the airplane is heading back to Jacksonville for storage and will be inspected by investigators there. Powers said his company might do an engine run and will store the plane until the insurance company and NTSB release it.
The plane is a 2002 model that Thomas bought in 2010. Experts said it was likely around $800,000 new, but several other pilots owned the plane before Thomas. The current value of the plane, which was insured, was $150,000-$200,000 before the crash.
There were no records of any previous problems with the plane.
Aviation experts said this is the fourth time this model of plane has crashed in Florida in the past six years.