The pilot who died, along with his two sons, after crashing his plane in South Carolina earlier this week, was trying to avoid hitting a nearby nursing home, say local authorities.
Workers at the nursing facility rushed to the scene but could not rescue anyone. The victims had attended the Masters golf tournament in nearby Augusta, GA, and were headed home to Colorado when their plane experience trouble.
“It is too coincidental that it would have hit there just out of sheer luck,” said Kevin Ginn, chief operations officer of the Anne Maria Rehab and Nursing Center. “We consider ourselves very thankful. I just wish we could have gotten them (the victims) out of there and nothing had happened to them.”
There were more than 180 patients and staff members at Anne Maria, in North Augusta, S.C., when the plane crashed Monday.
“I know if he had hit the building, it would have taken a number of lives,” Ginn said.
Witnesses said the pilot, William Cuntz, 70, was trying to make an emergency landing when he veered the plane away from the nursing home, landing in a wooded area between the facility, a four-lane highway and a neighborhood.
