The legendary actor was piloting a vintage World War II training plane when it crashed on a California golf course in 2015.
Harrison Ford has several upcoming projects such as Shrinking, Indiana Jones, the Dial of Destiny, and 1923. He feels at home while acting and this is what he was meant to do. However, much has changed in his life after he was in a near-death plane crash in March 2015. The legendary actor was piloting a vintage World War II training plane when it crashed on a California golf course.
Now, his wife Calista Flockhart no longer flies on vintage planes with him. As Ford told The Hollywood Reporter, “I changed a lot of things in my life." He elaborated, “My wife does not fly with me in vintage airplanes anymore — she will in others. I certainly don’t want to have to recover from that kind of accident again. It was really hard on my family and it was hard on me."
“I went back to flying. I know what happened. So that’s part of the reason (I went back). There was a mechanical issue with the airplane I could not have known about or attended to in any way. So in the words of the great philosopher Jimmy Buffett: S*** happens,” he continued.
Ford’s plane lost power in its engine and this led to the crash. At that time, his publicist said in a statement to NBC News that he was “banged up” and went to a hospital.
Actor and longtime aviation enthusiast Harrison Ford was piloting a plane at the Hawthorne Airport in Los Angeles on April 24 when he crossed a runway where another aircraft was landing. https://t.co/bmAFHbfTX6
— CNN (@CNN) April 29, 2020
The actor, 80, said there is always a scope for improvement when it comes to flying. “Well, you never do anything perfect. That’s a dangerous concept. So you’re always looking to see what you did,” he said. “Flying is especially like that. After every flight, you can analyze the flight and say, ‘Remember when I did that? That was a rookie mistake',” he added.
Ford has talked about the plane crash earlier as well. He recalled the accident during an October 2015 episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live. "I remember the engine stopping, I remember that part very well," he continued. "And then I remember the tower, I remember their suggestion. Their suggestion was that I take the normal route to land and I knew I wasn't going to do that, so I said no. And that's the last thing that I remember until five days afterward, actually," he added.
He said, "I’m told by the doctors that the amount of general anesthetic I got induced a retrograde amnesia.”
Ford eventually recovered and returned to the pilot seat as early as May of that year and even surprised Star Wars fans with an unexpected appearance at San Diego Comic-Con that July.
And while Flockhart, 58, won't be riding a vintage plane with her husband in the skies, Ford told PEOPLE that he would love to work with his wife soon. "She's just going back to work after having devoted herself to the raising of our son, Liam, for the last 20 years," Ford explained. "And she's enjoying going back to work. I'm hoping we will find something to do together," he added.
References:
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/harrison-ford-injured-plane-crash-n318301
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kDhd1JVimc
Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Pascal Le Segretain
