A small plane making an emergency landing on a busy road in southwest Florida struck the back of a moving pickup truck on Saturday. Remarkably, no one was hurt.
The incident happened around noon on Bayshore Road near Interstate 75 in North Fort Myers. According to the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, the two pilots aboard the Cessna 172D Skyhawk reported a mechanical problem and tried to land on the road.
The plane came down at an angle, touching down in the far-left eastbound lane, before bouncing into the middle lane and then the turn lane, WGCU reported. It struck the rear of a pickup truck heading east.
Drivers caught the landing on video, and clips quickly spread on social media.
Brandon Hinson, who was driving a truck towing a trailer, said he saw the plane coming down and sped up to get clear before bringing his truck to a stop. The plane landed “20, maybe 30 feet behind the truck and trailer I was driving,” he told WGCU. “I was just trying to stay out of the way.” His wife, Dessy Makar, posted about the scare on Facebook, saying she was relieved he was unharmed.
“Thankfully, this incident had a positive outcome, and no one was injured,” Sheriff Carmine Marceno said, praising deputies for their response.
Deputies and Florida Department of Transportation crews moved the plane off the road. The FAA is leading the investigation into what went wrong.
Second emergency landing in months
It was not the first time this plane has ended up on a highway. On August 29, the same Cessna made an emergency landing on US 98 in Highlands County after developing engine trouble on a flight from Fort Myers to Sebring, according to the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office. The pilot landed on the road and taxied onto the grass, and no one was hurt.
The plane is registered to Edward Kear of Bonita Springs.
Saturday’s landing came a week after a deadly crash in Palm Beach County, where a Learjet 60 bound for the Bahamas crashed into a neighborhood in Greenacres on November 1, killing all nine people on board.
