A gyrocopter went down on takeoff at Petaluma Municipal Airport around 6:43 p.m. Wednesday, July 29; the lone pilot self-extracted before crews arrived and sustained only minor injuries, per KRON4 and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

The aircraft came to rest beside the runway at 601 Sky Ranch Drive, off the northeast edge of Petaluma in Sonoma County, at about 6:43 p.m. Wednesday, July 29. It was a gyrocopter, and it went down during takeoff — the moment a pilot is committed to the air with the least room to recover.

The most improbable part came next: the pilot climbed out on his own. He was the only person aboard, and he had self-extracted before the Petaluma Fire Department reached the scene, Battalion Chief Matt Martin said in a statement quoted by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. "The pilot, who was the sole occupant of the aircraft, had self-extricated prior to the arrival of emergency personnel," Martin said. Paramedics evaluated him; the Press Democrat reported he suffered minor injuries and declined further treatment. KRON4, which first reported the crash, described no injuries — the two accounts differ on that point.

The fire department's press release said "there was no damage to the airport runway or surrounding airport infrastructure." The gyrocopter has since been hauled off the runway. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board have been notified, and the cause is under investigation; no preliminary incident report had been indexed as of this writing.

Petaluma Municipal is a single-runway general-aviation field — the kind of place where small experimental aircraft take off on a Wednesday evening without anyone downtown noticing. By the time you read this, the runway is clear and the tarmac looks like it always does. The record of what happened at 6:43 sits with the NTSB now.