 A pilot is recovering at this hour after crashing his plane near Manoman. Sarah Rudling takes us to the scene with the account from one of the witnesses who helped save the pilot's life. It was just after 8 on Tuesday night when a pilot took off from the Manoman airport behind me and witnesses say his plane just didn't gain altitude. It actually crashed only about a mile away nose first into this field. He is really lucky. Somebody was watching over him. A crumpled metal shell is what remains of Mark Habedinck's airplane shortly after takeoff. I don't know his extent of his injuries, I know he's got some broken bones and lacerations but that's about it. The pilot is recovering at Sanford in Fargo after two MnDOT employees who happened to be driving by pulled the pilot out of the wreckage. I couldn't believe it. I had to look away and look back again to see if it actually happened because it just felt like something out of a movie to see a plane crash like that. 20-year-old Eric Fitzgerald and his boss Doug Zarlane ran towards the plane, smelling the leaking fuel. What was racing through my mind when I walked up there was just, please God, let him be alive. I couldn't have even imagined if he wanted to. Despite helping to save the man's life, Eric says he doesn't consider himself a hero. Anybody driving down the road that saw that would have pulled off and helped and for some reason it just happened to be us in that situation and it's just something that we as people do to help each other out. We're turning to work but never forgetting what happened. The cause of the crash is still under investigation. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.