The experienced pilot, who has been flying since the 60s, sustained head wounds and bled profusely. He was transported to the UCLA trauma centre where he's currently receiving treatment for injuries he sustained from the crash. His son, Ben Ford later tweeted to fans to assure them that his dad is ok
The fact that he escaped the crash with just a few injuries is not surprising to those who have flown with him. They say he's a great pilot."At the hospital. Dad is ok. Battered, but ok! He is every bit the man you would think he is. He is an incredibly strong man.'
Dr. Sanjay Kahurana was golfing when he saw the plane "drop like a rock" about 45 meters in front of him. He ran to the plane and found the pilot stunned and complaining of pain below his waist and with a deep gash in his scalp.
Kahurana
and other golfers pulled him from the wreckage, and the doctor assessed
his condition. It was at that point that Kahurana realized who he was
treating.Ford, 72, is hospitalised with undisclosed injuries that his publicist says are not life-threatening.
The actor, who battled Hitler's henchmen in Raiders of the Lost Ark as dashing archaeologist Jones, was flying a World War II-era plane when it lost engine power shortly after takeoff from Santa Monica Municipal Airport near Los Angeles.
No one on the ground was hurt.
Ford's son Ben tweeted Thursday evening from the hospital: "Dad is ok. Battered, but ok! He is every bit the man you would think he is. He is an incredibly strong man." Ben Ford's publicist, Rebecca Brooks, verified the tweet Friday in an email to The Associated Press.
Harrison Ford had a cut to his forehead and scraped arms, but it wasn't clear what internal injuries he may have received, Los Angeles Assistant Fire Chief Patrick Butler said.
"He wasn't a bloody mess. He was alert," Butler said.
Ford told the airport tower about 20 minutes after his 2 p.m. takeoff that he had engine failure and was making an immediate return, according to a recording posted by LiveATC.net.
The plane had been flying at
about 3,000 feet and hit a tree on the way down, according to witnesses
and officials. The plane, a yellow 1942 Ryan Aeronautical ST3KR, had
damage mostly confined to the front."I would say that this is an absolutely beautifully executed " what we would call " a forced or emergency landing, by an unbelievably well-trained pilot," said Christian Fry of the Santa Monica Airport Association.
Charlie Thomson, a flight instructor at the airport who saw Ford take off, said engine failure like Ford's does not make the plane harder to maneuver. "It just means you have to go down," he said.
The airport's
single runway sits amid residential neighborhoods, and city leaders and
many residents advocate closing it, citing noise and safety concerns.
Other planes have crashed into homes, and four people died in September
2013 when their small jet veered into a hangar and caught fire.Ford, who plays the swashbuckling Solo in his fourth "Star Wars" movie set for release in December, shuns attention to his private life but has been publicly effusive about his love of flying.
Ford got his pilot's license in the 1990s and has made headlines, though he had never been significantly injured. In 2001, he rescued a missing Boy Scout with his helicopter. Nearly a year before, he rescued an ailing mountain climber in Wyoming.
In 2000, a gust of wind sent a six-seat plane Ford was piloting off a runway in Lincoln, Nebraska. He and his passenger were not injured.
He has also volunteered his services during forest-fire season, when helicopters are busy battling blazes.
The National Transportation Safety Board investigation could take up to a year before a final report. NTSB investigator Patrick Jones said the agency would look at "everything: weather, man, the machine."
Ford last year wrapped "Star Wars: The Force Awakens," which was briefly suspended when Ford suffered a broken leg during shooting. He co-stars in a romance fantasy, "The Age of Adaline," due out April 24.
True to the heroes he plays on the big screen, a calm and collected
Harrison Ford glided his aeroplane into a crash landing on a Venice,
California golf course yesterday.Moments before the crash, in audio of his conversation with air traffic control, an unemotional Ford can be heard asking for an emergency landing because his engine had failed.
The 72-year-old actor who has been a licensed pilot for nearly two decades, wasn't going to be able to make the runway at Santa Monica Airport so he picked a long green at the nearby Penmar golf course to land out of the way of the congested neighbourhood.
While Ford was rushed from the scene bleeding heavily from a head wound, his injuries were described only as moderate and he is expected to make a full recovery.
"At the hospital. Dad is ok. Battered, but ok! He is every bit the man you would think he is.
The fact that Ford escaped the crash with just a few injuries is not surprising to those who have flown with him.
"Harrison's been a great pilot. You can see by the fact that he survived this forced landing that he is a skilled aviator," Paul Mitton, who produced a documentary about Ford's love of flying, told CNN.
"Just looking at the crash site, you see the trees nearby, there's a tree not too far behind the aircraft.
"Had the wing clipped that, the airplane could have spun around, he could have been ejected, he could have ended up upside down. That would have been bad," Mitton added.
Aviation expert Rick Dake told People
that Ford's landing was amazing considering the unforgiving nature of
the World War II-era plane."Everything he did was perfect," Dake, of Aviation Consulting Experts, told People.
He says less experienced pilots training on the plane during World War II would often crash because the plane tended to flip when the engine fails.
"That alone is testament to the great ability Harrison Ford had. He made a 180-degree turn with the engine seizing up on him. He almost made it to the runway," Dake said.
"He was able to keep that plane away from the houses and land it with the least impact on the community. That was the best place he could have landed it.
"He was 100 per cent doing exactly what an excellent aviator would do."
The crash happened shortly after Ford took off from Santa Monica Airport alone in the two-seater vintage aeroplane.After take-off Ford called back to to the air traffic control tower, saying his engine had unexpectedly died and he needed clearance to land.
The air traffic controllers gave Ford permission to return to the runway - but the actor's plane couldn't make the journey. Instead he glided the plane down on to the green.
Golf course employee Howard Tabe told NBC News: "There was blood all over his face ... Two very fine doctors were treating him, taking good care of him."
