Emergency 911 callers reporting Harrison Ford's plane crash earlier this month used tee box locations to help direct responders to the "Star Wars" actor's downed vintage aircraft.
The 911 calls released Tuesday include one caller who told a dispatcher he could see the crumpled Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR after in crash-landed March 5 on the course at Venice's Penmar Golf Club. Other witnesses reported seeing the plane go down just after takeoff southwest of Santa Monica Municipal Airport.
Caller: "A plane went down... on the eighth tee area."
Dispatch: "Excuse me?"
Caller: "It's on the eighth tee area."
Dispatch: "What do you mean? What's that?"
Caller: "A plane came down right on the eighth tee area."
U.S. & World
The 911 call from the golf course was one of several alerting dispatchers to the crash.
Details regarding why the single-engine World War II vintage plane lost power after taking off were not included in a preliminary report issued March 10 by the National Transportation Safety Board. The plane struck a tree before slamming into the ground.
A final report could take months to complete.
Ford, 72, suffered non-life threatening injuries. The "Indiana Jones" star received his pilot's license in the 1990s and has made headlines with his flying before, though he had never been significantly injured doing it. In 2001, he rescued a missing Boy Scout with his helicopter. Nearly a year before, he rescued an ailing mountain climber in Jackson, Wyoming.
In 2000 in Lincoln, Nebraska, a gust of wind sent a six-seat plane Ford was piloting off the runway. He and his passenger were not injured.
He has also volunteered his services during forest-fire season, when rescue helicopters are busy fighting fires.
