A father-of-two is being remembered as a hero after he courageously crash-landed his doomed aircraft in the middle of a street in Melbourne's Bayside suburbs, narrowly avoiding family homes.
Footage shows how, in his final moments, pilot Anthony Liddell suddenly turned and came crashing down in the middle of a Mordialloc street, miraculously avoiding nearby houses.
The aircraft burst into flames, with fire spreading quickly down the street.
Sadly the father, beloved colleague and experienced aircraft maintenance engineer, couldn't be saved.
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The single-engine Cessna came to rest just metres from Vlad Wassilieff's front door, while he was inside with his baby and wife.
"The flames basically just took off straight away, 10 metres in the air. I tried to get the hose over the fence but it was just too fast," he told 7 News.
Residents came running out to help, but there was little they could do to save the 50-year-old Mount Martha father.
"[The plane] was going too slow. And then as soon as I saw it, it just made a sudden change of direction and nose-dived straight away. And then there was a massive fireball," witness Richard Saunders said.
"I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what to do. It was just such a big fireball going on, I couldn't do anything."
7 News / Newshub.
