WEST JORDAN, Utah, Aug. 23, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — The pilot of a small plane that crashed shortly after takeoff from the South Valley Regional Airport has died, West Jordan police have confirmed.
The incident was reported at about noon Wednesday, and officers responded to the area of 4300 West and Copper Hills Parkway.
“We responded, and the pilot had been ejected from the plane,” West Jordan Police Assistant Chief Jeremy Robertson told Gephardt Daily.
“Medical personnel worked on him for a short time, but he was later pronounced deceased.”
No one else was on the plane. The name of the pilot and the variety of small plane involved were not available.
Asked whether the pilot jumped or was somehow ejected from the aircraft, Robertson said that was not yet clear, and would be one focus of the investigation.
“We’ll be working with the NTSB and FAA on the investigation, and that will be ongoing,” Robertson said.
Nearby resident Jeremy Lowe said he arrived at the scene after another woman and a few minutes before emergency crews. He said at the scene he was leaving his house to head out to work, and “I pulled up here on Airport Road and noticed the plane crash at that point, I basically proceeded to try and do what I could to give life saving measures to help the gentleman stay alive.”
Lowe, with emotion in his voice, described the scene as consisting of the broken plane, the debris field, and the pilot in the middle of the street.
“My military training kicked back in, and I just knew what I had to do to try and help save his life,” said Lowe, who reported he had trained as a Marine.
It appeared to him the man could not be saved, Lowe said.
“It was basically just trying to do what we could until the proper personnel got there to make that decision.”
Lowe said he performed life-saving measures once before, at a traffic accident site. In that case, the victim lived, he said.
As for the pilot, “It’s very sad,” Lowe said. “I feel for anybody that he might have left behind.”
