Harrison Ford 'banged up' but OK after plane crash
LOS ANGELES — Harrison Ford is “banged up” but expected to make a full recovery after crash-landing a vintage plane on a Los Angeles golf course, his representative said Thursday.
Ford's publicist Ina Treciokas released a statement Thursday night saying the actor was flying a World War II vintage plane that had engine trouble on takeoff.
She said Ford had no choice but to make an emergency landing, which he did safely, and that he is in the hospital but his injuries are not life-threatening.
The 72-year-old “Star Wars” and “Indiana Jones” actor, who is a graduate of Maine East High School in Park Ridge, is an aviation enthusiast who often flies out of the Santa Monica Airport. Penmar Golf Course, where the crash happened, is just west of a runway there.
In a communication with Santa Monica's air traffic control tower at 2:21 p.m., Ford cites engine failure and says he is making an “immediate return,” according to a recording posted by the website LiveATC.net.
Shortly after, witnesses reported seeing the aircraft plunge to the ground. Nobody on the ground was hurt, but people hurried to the scene and started helping Ford, who was the only person on board, officials said.
Jeff Kuprycz was golfing when he saw the plane taking off.
“Immediately you could see the engine started to sputter and just cut out, and he banked sharply to the left,” he said. “He ended up crashing around the eighth hole.”
Kuprycz said the plane was about 200 feet overhead when it dropped to the ground.
“There was no explosion or anything,” Kuprycz said. “It just sounded like a car hitting the ground or a tree or something. Like that one little bang, and that was it.”
Ford is cast to play swashbuckling space-age soldier-of-fortune Han Solo in his fourth “Star Wars” movie, set for release in December.
The original “Star Wars” in 1977 made Ford an overnight star who remains an A-list actor with several colossal box office hits in his credits. He played whip-slinging archaeologist Indiana Jones in four movies in that series.
The crash marks the second high-profile accident for Ford in the last year.
Shooting on “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was shut down for several weeks last July after Ford broke his leg during filming at the Pinewood Studios outside London. The accident involved the spacecraft door of the Millennium Falcon, which makes a return in the highly anticipated film.
Returning to play Han Solo isn't the only famous role Ford is planning to reprise. He is expected to star in a sequel, currently in development, of the 1982 cult science-fiction film “Blade Runner.”
An “Indiana Jones” reboot is also in early development, though that project may usher in a new actor in the leading role
Ford has been married since 2010 to “Ally McBeal” actress Calista Flockhart.
Ford got his pilot's license in the late 1980s and has served as a spokesman to various airline associations. In 2009, he stepped down as chairman of a youth program for the Experimental Aircraft Association.
His flying made headlines in 2001 when he rescued a missing Boy Scout in his helicopter. Nearly a year before, he rescued an ailing mountain climber in Jackson, Wyoming.
The actor has said his rescues “had nothing to do with heroism.”
“It had to do with flying a helicopter. That's all,” he said.
Ford also has volunteered his services during forest-fire season, when rescue helicopter are busy fighting blazes.
In 2000 in Lincoln, Nebraska, a gust of wind sent a six-seat plane Ford was piloting off the runway. He and his passenger were not injured.