Pilot seriously injured in Dutton plane crash

A small, homebuilt aircraft crashed in Dutton on Thursday, June 17, about 6:15 p.m., leaving its pilot, 67, with what Elgin Ontario Provincial Police described as “serious life-altering injuries.”

OPP Constable Troy Carlson said OPP, Dutton Dunwich Fire Service and Elgin County paramedics were called to the scene, and on arriving found a Rutan Long-EZ single-engine “armature” prop-driven aircraft had gone down short of a grass landing strip.

It collided with the foundation of a house being built in a new subdivision on Leitch Street in Dutton.

The pilot, the lone occupant and a Dutton resident, was extricated from the plane by firefighters, and then airlifted to hospital in London by Ornge air ambulance.

Const. Carlson said the Transportation Safety Board of Canada would take the lead in investigating the case.

(AE/photo contributed by Elgin OPP)

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