LEGENDARY HOLLYWOOD ACTOR Harrison Ford was injured on Thursday night when his small plane crash-landed on a golf course outside Los Angeles.
The 72-year-old suffered multiple gashes to his head and was left bleeding after the crash of the vintage two-seater plane.
A photograph of the downed plane shows its nose cone ripped open.
“At the hospital. Dad is ok. Battered, but ok!,” Ford’s son Ben said in a tweet.
Ford’s publicist said he was ‘banged up’ and is currently receiving medical care.
“The injuries sustained are not life threatening, and he is expected to make a full recovery,” she said.
The striking yellow-silver plane, which is more than 70 years old, had just taken off from Santa Monica Airport.
In audio with air traffic control, Ford can be heard saying, in an urgent voice: “Engine failure,” before requesting “immediate return” to the airport.
The aircraft clipped trees only yards from houses, and a few hundred yards from the airport runway he was trying to return to, before crashing onto what looked like a fairway.
“When we arrived on scene we had a small aircraft that was down on Penmar Golf Course, near the Santa Monica airport,” Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Erik Scott told AFP.
“Fortunately no one (else) was injured and the NTSB will perform an investigation,” he said, referring to the National Transportation Safety Board.
The KTLA television station cited witnesses as saying Ford was helped out of the plane, and that he could use his legs.
It showed video footage of the plane, which gashed a stretch of grass on the golf course before coming to a halt the right way up.
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An LAFD spokesman, Patrick Butler, speaking at the scene, described Ford’s injuries as “fair to moderate.”
“The patient left the scene conscious and breathing,” said Butler.
Contains reporting by AFP. Additional reporting by Christine Bohan
