At 30 feet in the air and just after takeoff, Alan Muhs felt the left engine of his Piper Twin Comanche falter.
No big deal, he thought.

Maybe it was a gust of wind. He'd make a slight adjustment. After all, these things happen, especially with light aircraft.

But the left engine kept losing power, and the small plane was veering hard to the left. Within seconds, Muhs lost control and the plane started heading down, slamming into a drainage ditch just off the runway at Tucson International Airport on Friday morning. The crash injured two passengers but could have been much worse. Everyone walked away from it.

"There were four of us in the Piper, and we all are OK," Muhs said by phone from University Medical Center, where his girlfriend and her mother were being treated for minor injuries.