The pilot of a home-built airplane on Saturday managed to escape a fire ignited minutes after taking off from the Aurora Municipal Airport, an airport official said.

The Aurora Municipal Airport, located at 43W636 U.S. Highway 30 Parkway in Sugar Grove, is a private airport focusing on corporate and recreational flights.

Bob Rieser, manager of the airport in Sugar Grove said the airplane was completely destroyed by the fire, but, fortunately, the pilot who was flying alone, managed to escape uninjured, the Chicago Tribune reports.

The airplane took off the airport at about 12:30 p.m. en route Champaign when the fire ignited in the engine compartment forcing the pilot to land the aircraft. But the plane collapsed during landing, skidding down the runway for about 1000 feet, eventually coming to a halt, Rieser said. The man managed to jump out of the airplane as it slowed down.

“He was a pretty fortunate individual,” Deputy Fire Chief Dave Adler of the Sugar Grove Fire Protection District, said as quoted by the Chicago Daily Herald. Sugar Grove firefighters extinguished the flames in less than 5 minutes.

Officials from the Federal Aviation Administration came at the scene of the crash to investigate the cause of the fire. It was not immediately known whether the man was properly authorized to fly the plane.