The plane crashed into jumbo (8)
I believe the answer is:
elephant
'jumbo' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'the plane crashed' is the wordplay.
'crashed' is an anagram indicator.
'the'+'plane'='theplane'
'theplane' is an anagram of 'ELEPHANT'.
'into' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for elephant that I've seen before include "The animal that never forgets" , "Trunked mammal" , "See 18" , "Trunk carrier?" , "Endangered Species" .)