It happened around 8:30 this morning, apparently as a student pilot was practicing touch and go's. But as Fox 17 News discovered, this plane was already on the FAA's radar. The Cessna 172 came to a grinding halt after crashing into a grassy culvert just off the main taxi-way. The impact was severe enough to separate the tail section of the plane from the fuselage.

"Life Flight landed at the airport and we just loaded him basically onto the Life Flight helicopter and they took him to Vanderbilt," said Randy White with Rutherford County EMS.

That was after the student pilot, 49-year-old Robert Ray, was cut out of the seat he was trapped in. He might have been there longer if a passerby had not stumbled onto the crash which wasn't readily visible from the airport office.

"A pilot was walking by the airplane and was thinking this happened last night.  Then he heard somebody say can you help me.  And that's when he called 9-1-1 and Life Flight was alerted,” said Retired FAA Aviation Safety Inspector Larry Williams.

Larry Williams is a retired FAA aviation safety inspector who learned to fly at the Murfreesboro Airport about 50-years-ago. Williams says 85 to 90-percent of plane crashes are the result of pilot error. He says 60-percent of crashes involving student pilots like this one happen at the airport. Williams tells Fox 17 News it's not unusual for a student pilot like Robert Ray with the proper number of hours to be cleared to fly alone.

"And any solo cross country more than 25-miles has to be signed off for that specific cross country and has checked all the information and the weather and he authorizes him to fly to a certain airport and back," added Williams.

Robert Ray's injuries include a broken hip and arm. The plane he was in is registered a company in Connecticut but was being used as a trainer by Murfreesboro Aviation. FAA records show the plane's registration expired in September.Small Plane Crash Sends One to the Hospital