Help Flows in for Student Pilot Wounded in Lake Worth Military Jet Crash – NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

A burning jet crashed into a Lake Worth neighborhood last month.

Colleen Valenti, a representative of Huge of Hercs, a nonprofit organization that supports the military aviation community, said she knew it was bad just from the sound.

“When it happened that day, I heard all the sirens,” Valenti said. “I do not live very close to the scene of the accident, but I heard the sirens.”

A Marine student pilot who has not been identified was badly burned after his parachute was wrapped in power lines.

He and his instructor threw themselves out of the plane before it crashed.

Organizations in North Texas have helped the student pilot on his path to recovery.

“I know, as a pilot’s wife, that there is nothing they want to do more than get on a plane and fly,” said Anne Pottinger, a Fort Worth Airpower Council representative.

Pottinger said the Fort Worth Airpower Council helped raise over $ 1,000.

Local restaurants and volunteers from both the municipality and Hugs from Hercs delivered hot meals to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, where the pilot was recovering in the burn unit.

“When everyone works together and supports families, especially military families, which is what we are all about, it is healing for everyone,” Valenti said.

Hugs from Hercs send care packages to military families and help them in need and around holidays.

The pilot student was transferred to the San Antonio area to continue his recovery, but volunteer groups plan to continue to help him in any way they can.

“I imagine his future career will be phenomenal because he needs to have new energy now by knowing what he almost lost and what he can regain,” Pottinger said.

The instructor pilot who threw from the T-45C Goshawk training aircraft has already been discharged from the hospital.

The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

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