Pilot in hospital after plane crash starts grass fire at Cooking Lake Airport

The pilot of a small plane was hospitalized after his plane crashed east of Edmonton on Monday, starting a small grass fire.

A man is in an Edmonton hospital after a plane crash Monday afternoon at an airport east of the city.

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Strathcona County RCMP told CTV News Edmonton the crash at the Cooking Lake airport was reported to them at 1:48 p.m. and that it caused a small grass fire, which emergency crews put out less than an hour later.

STARS air ambulance took the pilot of the small plane, a man in his 70s who was the only person in it, to Edmonton’s University of Alberta hospital, the emergency service told CTV News Edmonton.

RCMP said federal transportation personnel will investigate the crash.

The Cooking Lake Airport is 20 kilometres east of the Edmonton city limits at Range Road 221 and Township Road 514 just north of Highway 14 and immediately west of its namesake.