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| Four Northern Ireland people hurt in Florida plane crash | Four Northern Ireland people hurt in Florida plane crash |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Four people from Northern Ireland have been injured in a plane crash at a park in Florida on Monday. | |
| Two men, pilot Grant Jordan and Al Ryan, both in their 50s, are in a serious but stable condition in hospital after the light aircraft crashed in Vinoy Park, St Petersburg. | Two men, pilot Grant Jordan and Al Ryan, both in their 50s, are in a serious but stable condition in hospital after the light aircraft crashed in Vinoy Park, St Petersburg. |
| A 17-year-old girl and another man had minor injuries, according to the St Petersburg Police Department. | |
| The group from the Ulster Flying Club were on a trip to the US. | The group from the Ulster Flying Club were on a trip to the US. |
| They were flying to Key West in a hired Piper PA28 Cherokee plane. | |
| The plane reportedly lost power on approach to an airport. It is thought the engine failed and the undercarriage clipped a tree, according to John Hughes, the chairman of Ulster Flying Club. | |
| Mr Hughes said he had been in contact with the four following the crash. | Mr Hughes said he had been in contact with the four following the crash. |
| "Allegedly what happened is the engine stopped on the approach over the town and he [Mr Jordan] did an excellent job and got the aircraft into a small park just on the line of the approach to the main airfield," he said. | |
| "He appears to have done an excellent job, but on the last part of the approach into the field from the witness statements that I've heard, the aircraft clipped a couple of trees which upset his final attempt to get into this park, but he still got in. | |
| "The aircraft was substantially in one piece which explains why one of the passengers was able to walk away. | |
| "They've been lucky in that if this had happened and they hadn't had the competence to do it [land] then things could have turned out worse." |