MOUNT COMFORT, Ind. — Zach King was spending his Friday morning like any other, in the backyard.
"We were outside playing with the dog and we heard a very loud noise, like a jet engine. Extremely loud for this area," said King, who lives near the Indianapolis Regional Airport in Hancock County. "Normally we hear them all the time, but it was really loud. Shaking the windows kind of loud."
Emergency crews responded to a small plane crash around 8 a.m. in the area Friday.
It wasn't just the noise that was out of the ordinary, King was wowed with how this plane planned to land.
"We looked up and there was an airplane just going back and forth and a parachute came out of it," King said. "That's when we decided we better get this on videotape."
The plane, a single-engine Cirrus with a V-tail, was found in a pond near Indianapolis Regional Airport off Mt. Comfort Road and north of Interstate 70.
The pilot, identified as 54-year-old Timothy Borrup, was not injured, according to authorities at the scene. Nobody else was on board.
Borrup is from Palm Bay, Florida. He said he had just taken off from the airport, trying to gain altitude when the aircraft started to sputter and stall. The jet began to go nose-up and lose power when Borrup activated the emergency system, releasing a parachute from the front of the plane.
"Just right above this tree line over here," King said. "And it just fell straight down."
Borrup remained inside the plane and it safely glided down to the ground, landing in a retention pond on the property of Carvana. He made it out of the minor crash with only wet feet from walking out of the pond.
Onlookers like King couldn't believe what they were seeing.
"It was a little nerve wracking because it was so loud and so fast. It was kind of scary," he said. "You can even see it in the video, a little shaky."
Verijet, the owner of the jet, sent the following statement to 13News:
"Verijet captain, Timothy Borrup, pulled the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System (CAPS) off runway 25 at MQJ this morning. Timothy is uninjured and in good spirits. The FAA is responding.
The aircraft was repostitioning to a revenue flight and had no passengers aboard.
CAPS is one component of an envelope of safety that protects SF50 passengers and crew in all phases of flight, including take-off and climb-out.
We are grateful for this outcome."
The Hancock County Sheriff's Department, McCordsville Police Department, Indiana State Police, and Buck Creek Fire Department all responded to the scene to assist.
The Federal Aviation Administration, the National Transportation Safety Board and other agencies will complete a full investigation into the cause of the crash.
