Pilot Crash Lands Airplane onto Busy Freeway near Houston, Texas
Houston traffic has a reputation for being crazy. You can now add another bizarre chapter to Harris County roadway occurrences.
Sunday morning (January 22) around 11:15 a.m., the Texas Department of Public Safety reported that a single-engine Bonanza 35 aircraft lost power in northwest Harris County forcing the pilot to make the decision to try and land the plane on Grand Parkway near Cypress Rosehill Road.
A spokesperson with the Texas DPS said that the pilot, who was the lone individual on the plane, may have clipped the top of an 18-wheeler on the roadway before the plane touched down on the pavement.
The aircraft did catch fire, possibly from the wings making contact with concrete barriers on the freeway. Incredibly, the pilot nor the driver of the 18-wheeler was injured in the incident.
The pilot was flying over the area for surveying purposes. The pilot is registered out of Detroit, Michigan. It is believed the pilot took off from West Houston Airport.
Traffic backups happened throughout the afternoon as clean-up crews worked the scene. Authorities were not allowed to clear the wreckage of the aircraft until the arrival of representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
A video from KHOU-11 has the audio from the conversations between the pilot and air traffic control as the incident unfolded. You got to give credit to the pilot for staying so calm as he was advising the tower that he would be landing on the highway. The last transmission from an eyewitness to the crash made the outcome sound tragic, thankfully, however, that was not the case.