The driver of a semi-truck in Florida got quite the surprise when a plane made an emergency landing on a Florida interstate on Monday morning right in front of him. A dashcam from the truck captured the wild video of the plane on the highway.
In the video, the airplane is seen flying just beneath an overhead sign structure before it reaches the open road. The small aircraft made the emergency landing on Interstate 10 east in Escambia County, Florida, at around 9:55 a.m. on Monday. Florida Highway Patrol said the aircraft’s engine failed while it was in flight.
“If I hadn’t seen a shadow over my truck and slowed down, he would have been on the inside of the cab,” the semi-truck driver Eric Jordan told WEAR News. “As you see in the video, it was a close call for the truck and for the sign, but he landed, he kept it in control. By the grace of God, he was able to land that plane in the middle of the interstate, and they’re not getting hit by another vehicle, so it all worked out.”
Jordan added, “I just couldn’t believe it was happening.”
The pilot told air traffic control that they would have to land on the highway
The Pensacola Air Flight School’s Piper PA-28 Cherokee had taken off from Pensacola International Airport at 8 a.m. Eventually, the plane lost radar contact as it went down.
A pilot and flight student reported technical problems that necessitated an emergency landing on the freeway, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office. Air Traffic Control audio revealed that the pilot reported smelling something burning in the cockpit.
“We do now have a burning oil smell in the cockpit, I don’t know if we’re going to make the airport. We are not making the airport, we’re going down on I-10,” the pilot can be heard telling air traffic control.
Jordan said that in an effort to warn other drivers to slow down, he turned on his hazard lights. He added that once the flight instructor and the student got out of the aircraft, workers pushed it off the road.
“Everyone was safe. He was a really good pilot, he was a good instructor; it was a miracle that he landed the thing with no problem,” he said.
A similar incident occurred on an interstate in Pennsylvania back in May. In that case, dashcam video captured the frightening moment when mechanical failure forced a pilot to land an airplane on Interstate 78 in Weisenberg Township in Lehigh County.