A pilot flying in North Carolina made a daring emergency landing on a highway, successfully weaving through traffic and eventually coming to a complete stop.
The harrowing video was caught on the pilot’s GoPro camera.
On July 3, Florida resident Vincent Fraser left a property near Fontana Lake in Swain County. Fraser was flying a single-engine plane with his father-in-law when the engine started to fail. Fraser’s only option was to attempt to land on US Route 19.
“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,” Fraser recalled to News 13. He added, “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.”
Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran praised the pilot’s “outstanding” landing, noting how Fraser was able to weave around the power lines.
“There were so many things that could have been catastrophic, but they didn’t happen,” Cochran wrote.
The emergency landing, which Cochran called “AMAZING,” resulted in no injuries to anyone on the road or the pilot.
Fraser is a flight attendant for Allegiant and has about a year’s worth of solo flying experience. Before pursuing flying, Fraser was a Marine.
“I kind of went into this mentality that I had when I was in the Marine Corps. So, it was just, I had to save Jeff, that’s my objective was to save our lives, and save the people on the ground and with as little damage as possible,” Fraser told WINK News.
After necessary repairs were made, the plane took off once again from North Carolina.