‘A plane just crashed in our backyard’: Columbia resident felt impact of plane crash

A plane crash in the Rosewood neighborhood of Columbia on Wednesday morning caused confusion and chaos for the residents of the tightly knit community, who were clamoring to ensure one another’s safety and gather information in the immediate aftermath.

Charles Grondines and John Thelan saw — and felt — the scene unfold in their own backyard.

Grondines, a University of South Carolina student, lives on Prentice Avenue. He said the small plane clipped a neighboring house and ended up crashing into a fence that separates his house from a neighboring home. Three people were home at the time of the crash, Grondines said.

“I was chilling in the house, and we hear this ‘boom,’” Grondines said. “My roommate runs in and says, ‘A plane just crashed in our backyard.’ At that point, we didn’t see any fire or anything. I said, ‘We’ve got to go help.’ We were getting our shoes on, and that’s when the second explosion happened. That one was just insane. You could just feel the shockwaves that would knock people down.

“It was one of the craziest things I’ve seen outside of a movie.”

Grondines said he thought the airplane was a “two-seater.” He said, after the crash, he and his roommates started running to neighboring houses to warn other people, because they weren’t sure other neighbors knew what happened since the aforementioned backyard is fenced in.

John Thelan, also a USC student, is one of Grondines’ roommates, and he was outside with his dog at the time of the crash.

“It was super foggy at the time,” Thelan said. “Standing on my porch, you could hardly see the fence across the backyard (because of the fog). Then we hear this loud, rumbling noise from the plane. It sounded like things were operational with the plane. It didn’t sound like anything was going on with the engine.

“So, it’s coming in our direction and, at the last second, it breaks through the fog and does a big left-handed turn. It dodged us and clipped our backdoor neighbor’s house. It hit the ground and exploded twice.”

Thelan said the first explosion he saw came on impact, then about 30 seconds later the plane exploded again. That second explosion brought the big “shockwave” that Grondines referenced.

Grondines said he felt fortunate that he and his roommates weren’t injured in the incident.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Grondines said. “The lady across from us is out doing yardwork all the time. We could have been in the backyard. It could have been worse than it was. Obviously, I feel bad for that pilot.”

Thelan acknowledges it was a frightening ordeal.

“As scary as it was, when the crash first happened we panicked and grabbed our dogs and put them inside,” Thelan said. “Our first reaction was to run inside and put boots on and maybe help whoever was in (the plane). As we were doing that, walking back in the house, it exploded a second time. ... At that point we evacuated and called 911.

“We were seconds away from being in the midst of the second explosion.”

This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 11:57 AM.