A small plane with two pilots aboard made an emergency landing on a busy road in North Fort Myers, Florida, on Saturday, clipping the back of a pickup truck as it rolled down Bayshore Road in traffic.
The pilots reported a mechanical problem and put the aircraft down on Bayshore Road near Interstate 75 around noon, according to the Lee County Sheriff's Office. The plane was a Cessna 172D Skyhawk. The sheriff's office said it hit the rear of a pickup truck traveling east, and that the FAA is the lead agency on the investigation. Nobody was hurt.
Video from the road shows the wings clip the truck after the wheels touch the asphalt at speed, and the plane keeps going down a road full of traffic. Flight-tracking data shows it took off from Sebring around 11 a.m. and landed about 50 minutes later, per the same report. The sheriff's office has not said what failed.
The driver, Brandon Hinson of North Fort Myers, was towing a trailer behind his truck, WGCU reported. He said the plane hit the ground in the far-left lane, bounced into the middle lane and then the turn lane, and that he stopped. "It landed probably 20 maybe 30 feet behind the truck and trailer I was driving," he said, adding, "I was just trying to stay out of the way." The sheriff's office describes the vehicle as a pickup; WGCU's account does not say how the two fit together.
Sheriff Carmine Marceno said in a statement: "Thankfully, this incident had a positive outcome, and no one was injured." He added: "Given the recent tragic news involving aviation accidents, we are especially grateful that everyone is safe." Marceno said on X that the sheriff's patrol and the Florida Department of Transportation moved the plane off the road while the FAA works to take over the investigation.
The remark comes less than a week after a Learjet crashed in Greenacres, Palm Beach County, killing all nine people aboard. As we reported, investigators were looking at whether the jet broke apart in flight, and the NTSB later found a piece of the aircraft far from the crater. The cause has not been determined.