Video shows plane crash near Plano salon, narrowly missing employee

A new video obtained by NBC 5 shows the moment a small plane crashed near Nail Addiction salon in Plano, narrowly avoiding one of its employees.

“He’s safe but he’s mentally affected,” the salon owner wrote to NBC 5’s Tahera Rahman. “He and his wife couldn’t sleep last night. I and my wife couldn’t sleep last night, either. Everyone is still very shocked from the incident.”

Nancy Procaccini, owner of Mama’s Daughters’ Diner next door, also couldn’t sleep.

The plane crashed at a shopping center at 6509 W. Park Blvd. around 6 p.m. on Tuesday, when her customers were inside the restaurant, just a few feet away.

“I love my staff. And I love my customers dearly. And it was just so close. You know, you could picture yourself being almost in a wreck and it’s like, you can almost feel like you were hit. That’s the way it felt for me,” said Procaccini.

She wasn’t at her restaurant during the incident but was still emotional on Wednesday after seeing her security camera footage.

“If it would’ve hit just a few more feet, I had people sitting right there: Children, mothers, I had one of my staff members, been with me 35 years sitting there,” she said. “That’s what gets you. When you’ve got so many people in your house—mama’s house, that you love.”

She said she’s proud of her managers, Laura Bowers and Emigdio Alvaraz, for evacuating customers quickly and calmly under pressure.

“I was trying to get out the door and I actually watched the camera myself and I just pushed this man out of the way and I went out there and couldn’t get very far out the door, because flames were flying, and just came back in and told everybody to get out and call 911,” Bowers recalled.

The plane hit Bowers’ car.

“They were all worried about my car, well, that’s just a car. We all got out and all those little kids that were in here got out, and we’ll carry on the Mama’s legacy,” she said.

Half-full plates and unfilled orders sat in the empty restaurant on Wednesday.

Procaccini said kids eat free at her restaurant on Tuesdays, so lots of families were dining with them when the plane crash happened. (NBC 5 photo/Tahera Rahman)

“This place at this moment, it should be alive. There should be a lot of people around here and to come in here and to see that’s it’s not—it’s just, you feel sad,” Alvaraz said.

But they are grateful for their safety, and praying for the pilot who died in the crash, and his family.

“That poor gentleman that passed away, his family’s Thanksgiving will never be the same,” Bowers said.

Procaccini brought a bouquet of flowers to her restaurant on Wednesday, to place at the crash site in honor of the pilot.

Other bouquets also popped up by Wednesday evening.

“I hate to be so dramatic and poetic about it, but something happened, where this one man sacrificed his life– I don’t know what happened in that plane, I just know that it missed our building and missed the nail salon right next door,” Procaccini said.

She said they’ve had to cancel all their Thanksgiving preorders at their Plano location, but customers have been supportive.

“I have the opportunity to feel that love today that I… really needed,” she said, choking up with tears. “Yes, it’s still emotional. I don’t think I’ve stopped crying.”

She said they’ve staffed up other diner locations to prepare even more of an influx during this busy holiday season.

The managers of Mama’s Daughters’ Diner in Plano said they hope to have the shop up and running again on Saturday morning.