Acrosss Georgia

Proposal on plane cut short by crash

ROME - A plane chartered to help a Silver Creek, Ga., man pop the question crashed Friday evening at Richard B. Russell Regional Airport, injuring all three people on board.

The couple, Adam Sutton and Erica Brussee, and the pilot, Bradley Gilbert, of Lawrenceville, Ga., were taken to Floyd Medical Center with injuries that did not appear to be life threatening.

Relatives holding a sheet with "Erica, will you marry me?" painted on it watched from the ground as the Cessna 127, circling low over the airport, stalled and then crashed into the ground. The plane caught fire, but airport personnel extinguished it quickly.

Ms. Brussee broke a leg, and Mr. Sutton and Mr. Gilbert both had cuts and gashes.

Mr. Sutton's cousin Joshua Willis said that as Ms. Brussee was loaded into the ambulance, she said, "Tell Adam I said yes."

The ring was lost in the wreckage, Mr. Willis said.

Ambulance hits police car, injuring officer

ATLANTA - An Atlanta police officer is in critical condition after the cruiser he was driving was hit by a Grady Hospital ambulance as both vehicles were responding to a double shooting near Turner Field.

Officer Peter Faatz is in intensive care at Grady Hospital with a severe head injury. Police Chief Richard Pennington said Officer Faatz will undergo surgery when his brain swelling goes down.

Officer Faatz, an Atlanta officer since 2005, was the only person in the squad car when the ambulance apparently smashed into the passenger side of the vehicle. Neither of the people in the ambulance was critically injured.

Chief Pennington said both vehicles had their sirens and lights on when the wreck happened. The accident is under investigation.

Despite crime, chief applauds extra patrols

SAVANNAH - A dragnet of 50 extra officers were on the streets when two people were shot and killed in armed robberies last week.

Four armed robberies also occurred within a 13-hour period.

Interim Savannah-Chatham Metropolitan Police Chief Willie Lovett added the extra patrols three weeks ago to tackle a spike in violent crime, specifically armed robberies.

That's exactly what they're doing, Chief Lovett said.

The extra officers have made more than 100 arrests and seized more than 20 guns since they hit the streets July 2.

Tallest building might bring tall transaction

ATLANTA - An Atlanta-based firm is negotiating what could be the biggest real estate transaction in the city's history for the tallest building in the South.

Cousins Properties, in partnership with Bank of America, CSC Associates, has agreed to sell the Bank of America Plaza skyscraper to an affiliate of the California-based investment firm BentleyForbes for an unprecedented $436 million.

The Peachtree Street building is 55 floors tall, rising 1,023 feet into the air. It's the tallest building in the country outside of New York or Chicago and ranks No. 24 on the list of the world's tallest buildings.

- Edited from wire reports