Serious Plane Accident Near Southeast Airport Road in DeSoto County, FL, on November 05, 2026

Two people were injured when a twin-engine airplane crashed in farmland near Southeast Airport Road in DeSoto County, Florida, on Thursday, November 5, 2026. County public safety officials confirmed that the pilot was airlifted as a trauma alert, while the other person on board was transported to a hospital.

Earlier that day, the plane had been practicing touch-and-go maneuvers at Venice Airport. Airport logs showed the runway practice began at about 10 a.m. and that the airplane departed shortly before 1 p.m. Those records describe the activity before the crash, rather than a confirmed crash time.

Sue Beaudet of Venice Airport described the type of practice the aircraft had been doing. She said flight schools commonly use touch-and-go exercises, in which a student approaches the runway for a landing, briefly touches down and takes off again instead of completing a full landing.

Tim Vowels, who was working in his shop near the crash site, described hearing a loud, unusual noise coming from the airplane. He estimated that it passed about 150 feet above him. That height was a witness estimate of the aircraft's position before the crash.

Amy Vinson, another witness in the area, said she looked up and saw an orange-and-white airplane. She described sputtering and said the sound seemed to alternate between stopping and starting. Both accounts concerned what neighbors saw or heard in the moments before the plane came down in the farmland.

Neighbors who had witnessed the moments before the crash expressed relief that neither person aboard had died. The occupants' names and ages were not provided, nor were further details about their injuries.

The Federal Aviation Administration is leading the investigation into the crash. The witness reports of unusual engine sounds do not establish a mechanical problem or explain why the airplane went down. A cause has not been established in the available information.