Small plane clips pickup truck in emergency landing on Florida highway
Cessna 172 put down on Bayshore Road fifty minutes after takeoff from Sebring, no injuries one week after Learjet crash killed nine in Palm Beach County
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Plane makes emergency landing on Florida road
theguardian.com
zerohedge.com
A small plane made a harrowing emergency landing on a busy Fort Myers road Saturday, clipping a pickup truck as it slid along the roadway. (Lee County Sheriff's Office)
Lee County Sheriff's Office
A small plane clipped the rear of a pickup truck while making an emergency landing on a busy Florida highway on Saturday, and no one was injured. Footage from the Lee County sheriff's office shows the Cessna 172 grazing over the truck before rolling on down a road full of traffic. The Federal Aviation Administration is the lead agency on the investigation.
The plane had taken off from Sebring around 11am and was put down on Bayshore Road in North Fort Myers, near Interstate 75, roughly 50 minutes later, after the pilot reported an engine issue. Two people were on board. The truck's driver, Brandon Hinson of North Fort Myers, was towing a trailer eastbound when the aircraft landed 20 to 30 feet behind him, bounced from the far-left lane into the middle lane and into the turn lane. "I was just trying to stay out of the way," he told WGCU.
Sheriff Carmine Marceno posted the video to X — "Couldn't have been a better outcome. Grateful doesn't come close!" — and his office has not said what mechanical failure occurred. The FAA is still working to assume the investigation.
The landing came less than a week after a business jet carrying nine people nose-dived into a Greenacres neighbourhood in Palm Beach County and erupted into a fireball, killing all aboard. Investigators are examining whether the Learjet broke apart in flight, and the National Transportation Safety Board has recovered a piece of the aircraft far from the crater. "Given the recent tragic news involving aviation accidents, we are especially grateful that everyone is safe," Marceno said in a statement.
The sheriff's patrol and Florida's Department of Transportation have already moved the plane off Bayshore Road; what failed in its engine has not been said.