TEEN PILOT SURVIVES PLANE CRASH

Police in Peoria, where 17-year-old Scott Hall of La Grange survived a fiery explosion of a small Piper Cherokee aircraft following a death-defying emergency landing on a usually busy city intersection last weekend, say they couldn't believe he was the pilot when he casually walked up and introduced himself at the crash site.

Perhaps it was luck or the teen's expertise at the controls, or perhaps it was some sort of divine intervention, but the Lyons Township High School senior not only miraculously walked away from the engulfed plane uninjured at 7 p.m. Oct. 17, but landed it 10 miles northeast of the nearest airport on a roadway a police spokesman said is typically congested with traffic.

"I'm a little bit stiff, but other than that, I'm not hurt," Hall told WBBM-AM on Oct. 18. "I truly believe it was a miracle that nobody was hurt."

Witnesses from a nearby service station and automobile dealership said when the plane dropped from the sky in the middle of the four-lane street, the pilot somehow also avoided power lines before skidding about 100 feet and immediately bursting into flames.

Hall, however, somehow escaped from the cockpit and walked away, then approached police and fire personnel shortly thereafter as they began looking for the pilot.

Neither he or his family were publicly commenting on the incident after the Federal Aviation Administration announced it was launching an investigation of the crash, but authorities said Hall, an experienced pilot, was a bit shaken up. The probe is not expected to conclude until mid-November at the earliest.


"He's not talking to anyone right now," his mother said Oct. 20.
Hall has been taking private flying lessons for the past two years and is working toward his commercial license. He was on a practice planned round trip solo flight from Chicago to Peoria and back when his engine failed or lost power some 4,000 feet in the air shortly after taking off back home from the General Wane A. Downing Peoria International Airport.

An aviation student at LT, Hall earned his pilot's license six months ago.

According to published witness reports, Hall's plane first clipped a light pole before touching down and crashing -- but not before he escaped out the plane's passenger door to safety.

Peoria Fire Department Division Chief Gary Van Voorhis said Hall declared a Mayday at 3,000 feet and was directed to the private, one-runway Mount Hawley Airport on the outskirts of town for an emergency landing, but could not make it.

Hall was transported to a nearby hospital for routine observation, but released soon after.

The plane, owned by an aviation company in St. Charles, was destroyed.

Father knows best

At the end of his junior year, Hall was the profile of a feature in the Graduation 2009 school newsletter ROAR.

The article stated Hall got an early start in aviation from his pilot father, John Hall.
Hall said he remembered sitting on his father's lap at the controls of a flight simulator as a child.
Hall also participated in a Young Eagles program through Aurora Airport, in which volunteer pilots such as himself take children on a brief flight and explain general aspects of aviation and the flight process.

At the time, he had earned a license to operate a single engine non-instrumentation plane, and expressed hopes of earning a ground instructor's license so he could teach at the airport.
As of this past spring, Hall was eyeing an education at Lewis University in Romeoville, known for its excellent aviation program, and a possible stint in the United States Air Force ROTC.

But if he enters as planned in the fall of 2010 following his graduation from LT, he is likely to enter as a sophomore because of the advanced credits he has earned through LT's aviation program.