Plane crashes during takeoff in Upper Captiva; no injuries reported

UPPER CAPTIVA, Fla. (WINK) — A small single-engine Cessna plane crashed while taking off on Upper Captiva Island, and all five people on board survived.

WINK News reporter Lauren Halpern was on the scene and spoke with a witness who was right under the plane as it came down. The plane was taking off on a grass runway when its right wing clipped a fence, causing it to spin off to the right and crash about 20 feet from the fence.

Peter Raby was traveling on a nearby road on his golf cart when the plane started getting too close.

"As he was catching up to pass me, he got close to the fence and only about six inches of his wing got clipped off because of the fence, and then it went back into the field, and then jumped over the top of me, and it all happened like this," Raby said.

Raby said there was a moment of silence before he realized there were children on board—a 3-month-old and a 4-year-old.

"Once I got the door open, they handed them out to me, and it was good, because they were both alive," Raby said. "But you know, for her to be frozen, she was frozen. And it's not screaming like the 3-month-old."

Raby said first responders from Upper Captiva arrived almost instantly. At first, they thought he might have been the one trapped inside.

"He said, 'You're not going anywhere. Sit here' because I was freaking, and they got the kids out, or maneuvered the kids, the adults gradually got out of the plane, and they were all safe," Raby said. "So everybody could walk. Everybody was, you know, and the kids especially were handled well."

The Lee County Sheriff's Office confirmed five people were on board. Remarkably, no one was hurt.

"It isn't a movie, and it's not TV," Raby said. "It was real life, and it was happening."

The FAA is now leading the investigation into what happened during takeoff.