The pilot of a small airplane that crashed near unincorporated Downers Grove late Saturday was operating the plane while intoxicated, officials said Sunday.
Just after 11 p.m. Saturday, fire crews were picking up from the scene of a multi-car accident with entrapment, when they received a call of a plane crash in unincorporated area near Downers Grove, according to a release from the Darien-Woodridge Fire District.
The small single-engine plane, reportedly a Cessna, was heading west, toward one of the runways in a private air park, when it clipped the roof of a house in the 8400 block of Kentwood, damaging that home, the release said. A nearby car was also damaged by falling debris from the crash. The plane then flew into some tall evergreens and flipped upside down.
The plane came to a rest upside down in as grassy area just east of a runway in the Brookeridge subdivision, in the area of the 8500 block of Kearney Road.
The crash was near the Brookeridge Airport, police said.
The plane's pilot was gone by the time firefighters got to the scene. Witnesses told fire crews he got in a car and left the scene. He was later found to be at a private home in Woodridge, according to the release.
Sean Oskarek, 45, of Woodridge was charged with operating an aircraft under the influence of drugs or alcohol, according to the DuPage County Sheriff’s office.
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Oskarek is being held in the DuPage County Jail on $100,000 bond.
The pilot was treated for minor injuries at Advocate Good Samaratin Hospital in Downers Grove before he was charged by sheriff’s police.
The home and car sustained minor damage, but the plane was extensively damaged.
The FAA was notified and investigators were on their way to the scene early Sunday.
