A MAN whose aircraft crashed at a winery in the Hunter Valley appears to have escaped serious injury, a spokesperson for NSW Ambulance said.
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Around 3.30pm on Monday, NSW Ambulance crews were called to an aircraft accident at De Bortoli Winery at Pokolbin, the spokesperson said.
Five crews and a helicopter with a specialist medical crew attended.
"Initial reports were that the plane crashed into a vineyard," the spokesperson said.
"One person was on board, a 24-year-old man."
The spokesperson said there was a bit of damage to the aircraft "but he seems to have come out of it OK, with a bit of neck pain".
The man was being transported to John Hunter Hospital in a serious but stable condition.
Robert Travers, the assistant manager of De Bortoli's Hunter Valley winery, said the aircraft had clipped a tree on the property and then crashed.
“On take off it has clipped a tree, which is about 15 to 20 metres away from our cellar door. There’s a lot of debris on the ground there,” Mr Travers said.
“And then he has continued on another 100 metres, and crashed between two of our shiraz blocks in the vineyard.
“It could have been a lot worse.”
Mr Travers said no one was hurt at the winery, and no fruit had been damaged either.
“There’s a good 15 metre gap between the two blocks and he has gone right in the middle.
“All the fruit was picked two weeks ago. Even if he did hit them it would not have been an issue.”
Mr Travers said that, despite the winery’s proximity to Cessnock airport, he had not heard of planes crashing on the property before.
“I’ve been here 11 and a half years and we are astounded it’s not happened before,” Mr Travers said.
“We are directly under the flight path. We are about 300 metres from the end of the runway."
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