A Jacksonville pilot and his passenger are expected to recover after their banner plane crashed on UF’s campus Saturday afternoon.
The Alachua County Sheriff’s Office and Gainesville Police’s Joint Aviation Unit will conduct an investigation to find out why the plane went down.
ASO spokesman Art Forgey on Sunday said the unit will handle the case for the Federal Aviation Administration because of the ongoing government shutdown.
Graham A. Hill, 28, and Ian Conrad, 26, were flying a Cessna 172F Skyhawk above campus at about 4 p.m. when they “experienced trouble” and had to make an emergency landing, officials said.
The plane towed a large banner, and Hill decided to cut it loose. He tried to make an emergency landing on Flavet Field, but the plane bounced off of the ground and crashed into an unoccupied Ford pickup truck near the stage. Ambulances later took them to UF Health Shands Hospital.
The plane — built in 1965 — is registered to Beach Banners Inc., a Jacksonville-based aerial advertising company, according to FAA records.
Beach Banners representatives could not be reached for comment.
News of the plane crash circulated around Gainesville and eventually reached Hill’s family in Jacksonville.
George Hill, the pilot’s father, said he and his family were proud of their son for making the emergency landing without hurting anyone. He said police on the scene called the move “heroic.”
“We’re happy to be talking about this in a good way instead of a tragic way,” George Hill said. “(Graham) took the road of ‘I’m going to crash the plane before I hit anyone.’”
UPD Chief Linda Stump praised Hill for landing the plane safely despite the area being occupied by tailgaters.
“(Hill) did everything he could under the circumstances,” she said Saturday, adding that she was glad the crash happened several hours before the Gator football game instead of closer to or during it.
Several witnesses at the scene said the crash happened in fewer than 10 seconds.
Daniel Knuth, a 23-year-old UF alumnus from Orlando was tailgating on Flavet when the plane hit the ground and skidded into the truck.
“It sounded like a big crash,” he said.
He also saw Hill and Conrad get out of the wreckage with bloody hands and heads, and later, saw ambulances take them away.
Paige Kauffman, a 22-year-old UF journalism senior, said she was on Fraternity Row when she saw the plane before it went down.
“I saw the propeller just stop, and I knew it was about to crash,” she said.
With more than 2,500 hours of flight experience, Saturday’s crash was not Graham Hill’s first emergency landing.
On New Year’s Eve, he took his girlfriend for a flight over downtown Jacksonville to watch fireworks and was forced to land after a stray bullet shot through a side window and grazed his head.
In a YouTube video posted earlier this year, Hill explains he and his girlfriend heard a “loud pop” inside the cockpit. He then found the bullet hole and told his girlfriend they had been shot at.
“Just as I said that, I felt blood run down my neck,” he said in the video.
Hill steered the plane toward Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport and had his girlfriend take over the flight control. Once they landed, Hill was treated for his injuries.
An investigation later revealed the bullet came from a gun fired from someone 1,200 feet below where Hill and his girlfriend were flying. The bullet went through the side window, hit the back of Hill’s head and shot out of plane’s roof.
Graham Hill found his passion for flying when he was a child, his father said.
He grew up near neighbors who worked as pilots. In his early 20s, he obtained his pilot’s license and used his certification to track whale and dolphin movements off Florida’s coasts for the government.
“He’s done quite a job at it,” George Hill said.
Fred Anderson, a 73-year-old a retired factory supervisor from Jacksonville, has lived near the Hill family since he moved to Seabrook Cove Road about 15 years ago.
He remembered the bullet incident and called Hill’s second emergency landing within the last year a “big coincidence.”
“It was bad luck as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “I don’t believe he brought anything on himself. It’s amazing these things happen to him.”
A version of this story ran on page 1 on 10/7/2013 under the headline "Police to investigate Saturday plane crash near Flavet Field"
A close-up view of the truck and airplane Saturday afternoon.
First responders and bystanders are seen at the scene of the crash Saturday afternoon.
