Photos: Claudia Grisales/American-Statesman
Austin police say a plane has crashed into a building in the 9400 block or Research Boulevard.
Austin-Travis County EMS Assistant Director James Shamard said smoke is visible for at least a mile and that paramedics have set up a triage center at the scene. “We have no idea right now if there are any patients, or how many”.
EMS officials said it was a seven-story building and that two people were unaccounted for. A witness said it was the Echelon I building.
Tucker Thurman was driving to work on the U.S. 183 flyover near MoPac Boulevard (Loop 1) when he said he saw a small plane, very low, flying over the highway. He said he saw it then bank heavily to the right before heading into the building.
“There was a huge fireball. It right into the building,” Thurman said.
EMS officials said they have taken at least two patients to the hospital, but that there are several “walking wounded” at the scene.
Fire Chief Rhoda Mae Kerr said that the department has gone into a “defensive position,” meaning that firefighters have been ordered to retreat from the building because of the danger.
Fire department officials said EMS has begun taking people to University Medical Center Brackenridge.
Cayce Watkins, a server at the Marie Callender’s restaurant at 9503 Research Boulevard across 183 from where the plane crashed, said: “It rattled our windows”.
Watkins said employees heard the roar of the plane and then a boom.
“There was a loud boom, and our windows, our entire building shook,” said Darla LaTour, an operations manager at the Candlewood Suites Extended Stay Hotel, which is about a quarter-mile from the accident site. “When we got out there already sirens coming”.
Mischelle Diaz, a spokeswoman for St. Edward’s University, said the plane hit a building in the Echelon business complex next to a building where the university’s Professional Education Center provides software training and teaches some graduate students. She said the education center has been evacuated and that university officials were trying to confirm that students and instructors all got out safely.
“We’re just desperately trying to get some information,” Diaz said.
Austin American-Statesman
