Plane Carrying Dale Earnhardt Jr Crashes at Tennessee's Elizabethton Airport

A plane carrying former NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr, his wife, Amy, and their daughter, Isla, “ran off the end of the runway” near Elizabethton Municipal Airport in Tennessee on the afternoon of Thursday, August 15, authorities said.

All passengers made it off the plane alive and Dale Earnhardt Jr was taken to hospital, according to a joint statement from the Carter County Sheriff’s Office and the Elizabethton Police Department.

Footage here shows thick, dark smoke rising from the site of the crash, and emergency vehicles arriving at the scene. The person who shot the video said the plane “landed completely wrong” and that she saw it “scrape the ground.”

Dale Earnhardt Jr’s sister, Kelley Earnhardt, tweeted that her brother, his family, and two pilots were safe and had “been taken to the hospital for further evaluation.” Credit: Kassye Keesee via Storyful