A father and son, along with their dog, cheated death in a miraculous escape after their plane crashed in Florida. In fact, remarkably, they were able to walk away completely unharmed despite their aircraft ending up embedded in a tree.
Jason Dougherty, 47, his son Caleb Dougherty, 22, and their Labrador retriever were on a single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza and about to land at Destin Airport on Sunday night, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office.
However, just before landing, the plane developed engine problems and spiraled out of control. It eventually crashed nose down in the tree just short of the runway, WKRG reported.
Local police said that the descending plane only just missed a house near the airport and that the two men “somehow survived without a scratch.”
The father and son, from Kansas, were in Florida on vacation.
A local woman, Beth Cann, who lives near the crash site, said her son Griffin was riding his bike to a nearby store around the time the plane went down.
“He came back and said, ‘Oh, by the way, there’s an airplane in a tree,’ ” Cann told USA Today. “He said everybody was fine, there were two guys and a dog, they’re out of the plane.”
A neighbor used a ladder to help the two men and the dog get out of the plane.