Small plane crashes into Parafield Airport hangar, two dead, ten injured

A small plane struck a hangar at Parafield Airport, burst into flames and left two people dead onboard, while 10 people on the ground near the building were rushed to hospital, including one with serious injuries. The crash immediately raised questions about what happened in the aircraft’s final seconds and how the airport’s safety protections performed under pressure.

Police and emergency services were called to the area near Kings Road at about 2:10pm on Wednesday after reports that the aircraft had collided with a hangar while attempting to land. The fire that followed was described as large, and Metropolitan Fire Service crews later extinguished it. The immediate area around the airport was evacuated as crews worked through the scene and ambulance teams treated the injured.

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau has now opened a transport safety investigation into the crash. That inquiry is expected to examine the aircraft’s approach, its contact with the hangar and the sequence of events that led from a landing attempt to impact and fire. Reporting indicated the plane hit the Flight Training Adelaide hangar, placing the accident inside one of the airport’s most active training zones.

Parafield is a public training airport in Adelaide’s north, about 18 kilometres from the central business district, and it is heavily used by small aircraft, pilot-training operators and recreational aviators. The crash has renewed attention on the risks that come with dense traffic, training activity and buildings packed close to active movement areas at smaller airports where aircraft often operate at low speed and low altitude.

The airport has deep roots in South Australia’s aviation history. It was first used as an aerodrome in 1927 and remained Adelaide’s only civil airport until Adelaide Airport opened in February 1955. That long history makes the fire and fatalities at Parafield especially stark, as investigators now work to determine how a routine landing turn ended in disaster on the airport perimeter.