'It Could Have Been Much Worse' Plane Crashes In Inland Empire

INLAND EMPIRE, CA — A small plane crashed at an Upland airport Wednesday morning, missing the runway, the San Bernardino County Fire Department shared.

Shortly before 10:30 a.m., a Cessna 210 crashed while landing at Cable Airport in Upland around 10:30 a.m., the FAA confirmed with Patch.

SBC fire crews arrived at the airport, located at 1700 W. 13th Street in Upland. There, a fixed-wing single-engine Cessna was found upside down, with its nose resting on fencing and its tail resting on Dewey Road.

"The plane was landing and overshot the airstrip, and didn't stop in time," SBCFD spokesperson Shawn Millerick told Patch. "At the end, the plane flipped onto its roof and ended up against a fence, with its tail on the road."

There were two souls on board, including the unidentified pilot and his passenger, a woman Millerick described as "elderly." Both were belted in, shaken, but otherwise uninjured, he said.

She was evaluated and taken by ambulance to a nearby hospital as a precaution, he said. "It was an abrupt situation, but there were no major injuries."

Millerick added that there were no issues with fuel leaks or fire resulting from the crash. "It could have been a lot worse."

The plane, a Cessna Model T210L, is registered out of Mammoth Lakes, according to the FAA. The filed flight plan shows it departed Mammoth Yosemite Airport just after 7:15 a.m. Wednesday, to arrive in Borrego Valley at 9:46 a.m. It then landed at Cable Airport, where it ended its journey in Upland, and flipped beyond the runway.

There was no immediate word on whether it was a technical issue that led to the crash. Witnesses at the airport said that the pilot had difficulty negotiating the landing.