Cessna Clips Pickup Truck in Emergency Landing on Florida Road

A single-engine Cessna came down on Bayshore Road in North Fort Myers around midday Saturday, Nov. 7, caught the rear of a moving pickup truck with its wing, and came to rest partly on the grass beside the road. Nobody was hurt.

Two pilots were aboard the aircraft when a mechanical issue forced them to attempt an emergency landing near Bayshore Road and Interstate 75, the Lee County Sheriff's Office said. The pickup was traveling eastbound, in the same direction as the plane, when the aircraft struck it. No injuries were reported in the air or on the ground.

The Federal Aviation Administration is leading the investigation. The sheriff's office said the pilot had reported engine trouble. The precise failure that forced the landing was not immediately clear.

What the video actually shows

Footage shot from the road shows the plane's wheels touching the asphalt as it speeds along Bayshore Road, with the wing clipping the rear of a pickup traveling the same way. The traffic around it keeps moving.

Images released by the sheriff's office show the aftermath, with the aircraft sitting on the roadway. One photo shows the Cessna, marked N2905U, resting partly on the grass beside Bayshore Road, nose pointed off the pavement, emergency crews standing around it.

The timeline is tight. Flight tracking data shows the plane departed Sebring, Florida, around 11 a.m. Saturday and made the emergency landing about 50 minutes later, at 11:50 a.m.

The driver who hit the gas

Brandon Hinson of North Fort Myers was driving a truck with a trailer down Bayshore Road with his windows down when he heard a funny sound. He looked over and saw the plane coming down at an angle, nose first.

He sped up. The aircraft hit the ground in the far left lane, bounced into the middle lane, then went into the turn lane, which is when Hinson came to a stop.

"It landed probably 20 maybe 30 feet behind the truck and trailer I was driving," Hinson said.

His first reaction, he said, was confusion rather than fear. "I was at first just wondering like what is he doing," he said, before the situation registered and he thought "oh no we're about to crash" and hit the accelerator. He credited the pilot's flying: "He landed well without any other incident so I'm blessed."

Hinson said he never got a photo of it. He was too busy steering clear. "I was just trying to stay out of the way," he said.

A phone call at work

Hinson's wife, Dessy Makar, found out the way most people find out about something like this, through her phone lighting up while she was on the clock.

"My phone just started blowing up, he knows I'm working, so I'm like 'what is happening,'" she said. "He answers like 'A plane almost just hit me'."

Makar posted about the landing on her Facebook page. "I cannot even begin to express how thankful I am that my husband made it out of that situation alive and unharmed," she said.

The same plane did this in August

This was not the aircraft's first road landing. The same plane put down on U.S. 98 in Highlands County on August 29, according to WGCU.

A report from the Highlands County Sheriff's Office said the aircraft was being flown with a pilot and two passengers from Fort Myers to Sebring when it experienced engine trouble. Three people were on board. The pilot realized the airport was out of reach.

The pilot landed on the road near Haywood Taylor Blvd. shortly after 10 a.m., then taxied into the grass. Getting there meant clearing a set of railroad crossing arms and then passing under power lines a short distance away. That landing, like Saturday's, ended with everyone walking away.

In August the flight was heading from Fort Myers to Sebring. On Saturday, roughly ten weeks later, the plane left Sebring and went down outside Fort Myers.

The airplane is older than most of the drivers

The aircraft is a Cessna 172D Skyhawk, a four-seat, single-engine airplane, and this one rolled out of the factory in 1963. It carries the tail number N2905U.

The FAA registration is in the name of Edward Kear of Bonita Springs, in southern Lee County. The flight was private.

Investigators have not named the two pilots or the driver of the pickup. The FAA has not released anything about maintenance, inspections or the nature of the mechanical failure.

What the sheriff said

Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno put out a statement the same day. "Thankfully, this incident had a positive outcome, and no one was injured," he said.

He set the outcome against the recent run of aviation accidents. "Given the recent tragic news involving aviation accidents, we are especially grateful that everyone is safe," Marceno said.

He credited patrol deputies, FDOT Southwest Florida and Bayshore Fire Rescue for their quick response. On the agency's work going forward, he said: "We will continue working closely with our partners at the FAA as they review the circumstances surrounding this incident."

He was blunter on X. "Couldn't have been a better outcome. Grateful doesn't come close!" Marceno wrote.

Clearing an airplane off a busy road

Once the scene was safe, deputies and the Florida Department of Transportation physically moved the plane out of the travel lanes. "LCSO Patrol & FDOT safely relocated the aircraft while FAA works to assume the investigation," the sheriff's office posted.

Deputies and state transportation crews stayed on scene for traffic control while the roadway was cleared, and surrounding roads were affected for hours. Bayshore Road runs past the I-75 overpass, and the stretch the pilots used was full of midday traffic.

Law enforcement and fire units were at the North Fort Myers scene not far from that overpass. The aircraft was eventually handed over to the FAA, which is assuming the case.

Six days after nine people died in Palm Beach County

The close call on Bayshore came less than a week after a Learjet crashed on Sunday, November 1, in Greenacres in Palm Beach County, killing all nine people aboard. The jet went down beside a road.

The National Transportation Safety Board is leading that investigation with support from the FAA. Federal investigators are still working to determine what caused the crash.

The two events are unrelated except in geography and timing, and Saturday's ended with no one hurt.

What is still unknown

The FAA has not released what broke on the Cessna. It has not said whether the engine quit entirely or lost partial power, and it has not released a preliminary finding.

The two pilots have not been identified. Neither has the driver of the pickup, who was not hurt when the wing hit the back of the vehicle.

What is documented: a 1963 Cessna 172D, two pilots, a takeoff from Sebring at about 11 a.m., a mechanical problem, a landing on a public road at 11:50 a.m., contact with a pickup, and a zero on the injury report. Brandon Hinson said the plane landed 20 or 30 feet behind his truck and trailer.