Incredible moment pilot of single engine plane is forced to make emergency landing in the middle of a North Carolina highway after suffering engine failure.
A camera attached to a small plane in North Carolina shows the dramatic moment when its pilot is forced to make an emergency landing on an interstate highway over July 4th weekend.
The single-engine aircraft — believed to be an Aero Commander 100 — descended on U.S. Route 19, near a bridge in Swain County on July 3 at around 11:45 a.m, the local county's sheriff office reported.
No injuries were reported, according to local outlets.
The plane's pilot said the emergency landing was tied to engine failure and that his father-in-law was in the aircraft at the time, when they were viewing a purchased property near Fontana Lake.
'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,' pilot Vincent Fraser told WMYA.
Video shows the monoplane steadily coming down on the highway, as Fraser looked for a small gap between cars in order to avoid causing a dangerous accident.
The main road ended up being his best landing option to, considering it was the only piece of flat land in an otherwise mountainous area.
'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,' Fraser told WMYA.
The scary experience came nearly a year after the Florida-native received his private pilot license in October. Fraser also has fewer than 100 hours of flight experience.
At the time of the emergency landing, authorities said they initially received 911 calls from motorists reporting a plane crash.
'The call came in as a plane crash, so we're just very thankful that it wasn't, cause the circumstances would've been very different,' Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran told The Smoky Mountains Times.
He added that the 'pilot set the plane down in oncoming traffic just over the power lines and there was one car coming.'