On Thursday, Swain County Sheriff’s office released a Go-Pro video to Facebook showing a frightening emergency landing by a small plane on a highway in the blue Ridge Mountains on July 4th weekend. The incident happened on Highway 74 near Sandlin Ridge on Sunday, said the Smoky Mountain Times.
The pilot Vincent Fraser said that he was flying with his father-in-law when an engine began to fail. Watch what happened next.
“I started going through my checklist and I was able to get the aircraft to restart and kind of fly a little bit, but she would only fly for 3 to 5 seconds, and then she would come back down and start to sink again,” Fraser said.
He looked for a place to land but was forced to land on the highway because he was in the mountains.
“By the grace of God, I looked to my left, and you couldn’t see it before because, you know, it’s just all valleys and mountains, but there’s a road — that road that I landed on just right there, perfectly lined up,” he said.
Foster was recorded by WLOS seen below in an interview.
The video was posted by Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran and he thanked everyone involved in bringing the plane down safely.
“We are thankful that no injuries occurred during this emergency landing and the plane is safely back in the air,” Cochran said.
“We have had plane crashes in Swain prior to this but I don’t remember an emergency landing ever happening,” Cochran continued. “This pilot did an outstanding job not only landing safely on a busy four lane (highway) on a holiday weekend but he kept his composure and safely guided the plane off the 4 lane to a safe spot that did not interfere with traffic.”
Drivers on the road pulled over and got off the road for the air craft, said WYFF 4 News.
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Foster will be flying back to Florida after his trip and the aircraft is already able to fly again. Hopefully, he stays safe in the air.
It’s easy to think that we would be ready for a situation like this, but that’s not always true. This man really kept his composure. Do you think you could keep your composure during something like this?
