After losing power immediately after takeoff, a pilot crashed a small Cessna 172 airplane onto railroad tracks in Los Angeles. He was pulled alive from the wreck by four heroic LAPD officers just moments before a commuter train roared through, obliterating the plane.
Video of the harrowing rescue shows officers Damien Castro, Christopher Aboyte, Robert Sherock and Sgt. Joseph Cavestany pulling the bloodied man to safety seconds before the commuter train, crashed through the scene, near the Whiteman Airport in the San Fernando Valley community of Pacoima.
The plane landed on the tracks at a railroad crossing just blocks from the LAPD’s Foothills Division station, and officers were on the scene almost immediately.