A single-engine plane crash-landed at the High Street shopping center on Richmond Road Monday.
“There was an emergency landing as a small plane lost power,” Williamsburg Police Sergeant Michelle Anaya said. “The pilot and passenger were unharmed.”
The pilot, Hans Kopper, 81, and a passenger took off from the Williamsburg-Jamestown Airport around 10 a.m. Kopper’s plane, a 1973 Cessna, experienced engine trouble after about an hour in the air.
As the plane began to lose power, Kopper started to look for a suitable place to land the plane. He reportedly wanted to land in an open field behind the High Street complex, but he overshot the landing.
Kopper managed to land the plane safely in an adjacent parking lot behind a mixed-use development. During the landing, the plane’s back wing clipped a light pole. The wing was severely damaged, but the rest of the plane remained intact. Neither Kopper nor his passenger was hurt during the crash, and no fuel spilled during the accident.
