Man survives plane crash Saturday night
A man is in stable condition after he apparently crashed his small aircraft upside down in some water Saturday night.
A release from the Hinds County Sheriff's Department said authorities received a call around 7 p.m. Saturday from family members who were concerned about Howard Jennings, 59, of Utica. They told police that Jennings took off in his plane from a private landing strip near his home just after noon on Saturday. They said he was headed to a sandbar in the Mississippi River near the Grand Gulf Power Station.
Authorities say the last contact family had with Jennings was around 1 p.m. on Saturday when he sent his family a photo of his destination on the sandbar.
Search and rescue efforts were hampered due to darkness and weather on Saturday, authorities said. Warren County Sheriff Martin Pace, along with the Mississippi National Guard and Metro One and Hinds County Sheriff’s Investigators began searching the area early Sunday morning.
Metro One personnel located the aircraft upside down in the water near a sandbar, and Jennings was outside the airplane alive.
Jennings was loaded aboard the helicopter and transported him to River Region Hospital in Vicksburg, apparently suffering from hypothermia and dehydration. The Federal Aviation Administration will be investigating the incident.
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Contact Therese Apel at 601-961-7236 or tapel@gannett.com. Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.