Lucky escape after plane smashes into US home

A firefighter looks for hotspots in the debris after his team put out a fire at the scene where asmall plane crashed into a home in Northglenn, Colo., Monday, May 5, 2014. The plane had been towing an advertising banner and crashed into an unoccupied house in the area north of Denver, setting the plane and the house on fire. The pilot walked away with minor injuries, according to authorities. AP

LOS ANGELES– A small plane smashed into a Colorado home Monday, but the pilot was able to walk away and no one else was injured, US authorities said.

“A Piper PA-25 Pawnee crashed into a residence after experiencing trouble while towing a banner over Northglenn, Colorado,” a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told AFP.

“The pilot escaped from the aircraft and parachuted safely to the ground before the aircraft went down.”

Nobody was home at the time of the crash, North Metro district firefighters said, and the pilot was transported to hospital but was not thought to be badly hurt.

A North Metro photo uploaded to Twitter showed the burnt-out wreckage of the aircraft embedded in a low-rise residence that also appeared to have been set alight.

The FAA is investigating.

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