Story was on ABC News with David Muir. You have to hear the audio.

https://abcnews.go.com/WNT/vid...-mid-flight-78301365

I wonder what altitude the American flight was cruising at. Had to be low enough for him to directly observe things like "watch that truck."

These reporters.

"And the FAA tells us it will investigate."

Uh, yeah. Doesn't the FAA investigate every aviation incident? I would think landing on a highway would qualify as an incident.

quote:

Originally posted by Piano*Dad:
I wonder what altitude the American flight was cruising at. Had to be low enough for him to directly observe things like "watch that truck."

It happened in Weston, so a Miami/Lauderdale/West Palm plane would be pretty low.

quote:

Originally posted by Cindysphinx:

Uh, yeah. Doesn't the FAA investigate every aviation incident?

No.

If it's an incident or accident, it's the NTSB that investigates, not the FAA.

The FAA gets involved when someone has broken a rule.

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:
The FAA gets involved when someone has broken a rule.

Surely there's a rule against landing planes on highways.

quote:

Originally posted by jon-nyc:

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:
The FAA gets involved when someone has broken a rule.

Surely there's a rule against landing planes on highways.

I'm not seeing any such rule. I just skimmed 14CFR Ch 1, Subch F, Part 91 "General Operating and Flight Rules", and remarkably, I don't see anything about where you can land. I searched the interwebz for "off-airport landing" and the consensus is that for normal operations, you can land anywhere that isn't "dangerous or reckless", and in the case of mechanical failure and a forced landing, anywhere you can put the plane down safely is fair game.

In the immortal words of Jack Hessburg, the first you need to remember about aviation regulations is this: anything that is not specifically prohibited is approved.


If there weren't so many trees, I might have opted for the median, but I cannot really second-guess the pilot. He got it down, the plane is intact, he didn't hit any cars, nobody was injured. He might have to file an incident report, but I'd say, he did just fine.