Two people narrowly escaped death on a Stellenbosch golf course when a Harvard aircraft made an emergency landing on the greens, News24 reported on Thursday.
It said Alfred Leroy (79) probably saved his own life and that of his fiancée, Mary-Ann Brewster, when he stepped on the accelerator of their golf cart at the last minute.
The accident happened on Wednesday afternoon on the De Zalze wine-estate golf course, near Cape Town in the Western Cape.
A wing of the Harvard took off the roof of the cart, injuring and throwing Leroy and Brewster out of the vehicle.
The unconscious Leroy, chairperson of the Phalaborwa Mining Company, was taken to the Stellenbosch MediClinic, where he received 20 stitches to a wound to his head.
Brewster, who runs a health shop in Phalaborwa, suffered severe bruising. She was discharged from hospital on Wednesday afternoon.
Commercial pilot Kevin Bell was at the controls of the Harvard, a World War II-era, piston-engined military training aircraft.
Brewster said she and Leroy were engaged and were staying at De Zalze for their ”second honeymoon”.
She was driving the golf cart when she noticed the plane circling and coming in low to land.
About 100m away, the plane landed, but suddenly turned and headed straight for them.
”I turned into stone from shock,” she said. ”Al stepped on the accelerator and we moved away slightly. The wing took of the whole roof. Blood was flowing from Al’s head. If we had not moved away, we would have been beheaded.”
Leroy said the plane appeared from behind the tree tops and lost altitude.
The next moment it landed on the fairway about 100m away.
”There was very little space between the sand pit and the trees,” he said. ”The plane couldn’t stop quickly enough and took off the top part of the cart.” — Sapa