4 Pilots Who Managed to Land Right On the Road

[Music] ever since human beings left the safety of the ground and aim for the sky there was one big concern about the whole flying thing how to get back to earth safely and it became even more important once we had airplanes yep so what if there's no airport nearby uh-oh it turns out that the best bet is landing on roadways but only a few trained pilots can handle such a task and only the best can handle the most extreme cases did you know that landing a plane on a road is highly illegal yes in most countries it surely is but there's also a universal rule of necessity as pilots often say themselves necessity knows no law or there's another saying with a bit more of a dark sense of humor total engine failure imposes surprise destinations I'll say jokes aside the rule of necessity implies that in an emergency a pilot can land a plane by any means possible the only important thing is the effort to save lives the first thing a pilot would look for as a landing place would be a highway with no turning points over a significant distance well they're not intended for an airplane landing they are in fact suitable because they're well lived have a relatively smooth surface and are wide enough to fit a medium sized plane there are some major challenges though look at the airstrip and at the highway from up above as a pilot would see it they look similar at first glance but when you start to notice the differences that could cause a lot of trouble for example it's not a problem for cars if there's a dense forest alongside the road but for a playing mmm-hmm that could be crucial the same goes for street lights road signs and other obstacles that a plane would run into the worst is of course road bridges if a plane can't stop before one of these well the collision would be a disaster fortunately cases of big airplanes landing on a highway are extremely rare but believe it or not other smaller aircraft land on roads regularly there are no official numbers on that matter but by some accounts there are at least dozens of reports emerging in a single year that involve a lightweight plane having an emergency landing on a road in most cases this happens due to engine malfunction a bit rarer is so-called fuel starvation and sometimes you'll come across something like needed to ditch a passenger noted as the cause well that must have been one annoying passenger to say the least in 1956 the strangest thing happened a man decided to land a plane in the middle of Manhattan to win a bet yes I kid you not this really happened this desperate daredevil was Thomas Fitzpatrick a person of immense piloting skill which was arguably used in the wrong way just to get a prize but his achievement was still quite impressive since he avoided any damage either to himself the aircraft or the city's property headlines of newspapers exploded that day telling about a single-engine plane landing on st. Nicholas Avenue near 100 91st Street but if you think a fine stop Thomas Fitz and that his miraculous landing was just lucky then you're probably under estimating the adventurous nature of some people and what can happen if it comes with a unique skill in a package deal this excellent pilot and notorious troublemaker did the exact same thing again two years later to prove he still had it and once again with no harm to anyone after prove the point the second time though he decided that he wouldn't fly anymore who knows if it was for the better or the worse some might say that we live in less adventurous times now but these days no one will try to land on a road without an extremely good reason a pilot of a single-engine plane called a Piper Malibu sure had one such reason when he decided to land on iron springs Road in Prescott Arizona to be sure of his reasoning you only must take a look at the condition the plane was in at the end of this trip it was laying upside down crashed and missing its wings but don't worry somehow none of the three people on board were hurt the plane tried to get to the Prescott Airport but was running out of fuel so it had to find another place to glide to in the process of landing one of the plane's wings crashed into a streetlight pole the pilot lost control immediately after and the malibu piper spun around and flipped on its roof fortunately the police were already rushing over since Prescott Airport informed them about a possible accident well as the pilots also say any landing you can walk away from is a good landing anyway all is well that ends well though this flight was unfortunate for the poor small plane itself still other pilots were able to not only save themselves from harm but their aircraft too one such miracle happened in 2018 in California imagine you're going to the beach at the end of the week you're stuck in traffic but you calm yourself down by assuming that this is the worst thing that will happen to you this day then suddenly a plane rushes right in front of him this is exactly what happened a plane landed right in the middle of Huntington Beach the biggest challenge for the pilot was that the street was webbed in electric cables one tiny mistake and a whole city block would lose power the consequences to the plane would be far worse than that never mind the people inside to glide between wires and touch down without hitting any of the cars on the road well that's a one-in-a-million landing but how do pilots do it apparently there's one secret and it's simple yet not too obvious the thing is when landing a relatively small aircraft slows down to a speed that on average is just 20 miles per hour faster than the speed of the traffic on a big enough Road like a highway most of the time drivers will have enough time to react and get out of the way even for the most unexpected guests like airplanes therefore the cases in which cars getting hit during a landing on the road are quite rare pilots won't ever choose a lane with opposite movement it's way too dangerous we all like action movies and movies about James Bond are among the forever loved classics here what's not to like almost comically cruel characters sharp plot twists and of course unforgettable stunts most iconic stunts is the one with a bd-5j jet flying through a hangar and then landing near the gas station on the road to fill her up one thing you probably didn't know about this stunt is that it was based on the real-life experience of the stuntman that performed it one day in 1975 this pilot flew to an insane altitude of 11,500 feet on his way to Washington DC when all of the sudden the jet started to malfunction there was no oil pressure in the engine after a rapid descent through the clouds the pilot saw that things were even worse there was nothing below him but a dense forest a small jet wouldn't survive a crash landing into the trees but then he saw a ray of hope a broad interstate appeared just a few miles away from it the mastery of his aircraft allowed him to glide towards the road and get in line with it but as he got closer there was more trouble the traffic was busy that day what else would be the obvious solution for a stuntman besides landing on the roof of a truck but instead he decided to just talk to a driver that passed underneath his jet and asked if he could slow down and clear the road for him you gently landed on the road and coasted for some time until it came to the gas station the staff member that met him was shocked he couldn't say a word and was just looking at the pilot who also couldn't find his words finally the man at the gas station assumed that it was all a prank and he was being filmed on a hidden camera if it was true it would have been one of the most expensive and difficult pranks in history it's a good thing that the plane was in the hands of a high-level professional and is mind boggling if he tried to think about all the things that could have gone wrong here if you had to experience an emergency landing what place would you choose a road maybe a field which one is scarier in your opinion let me know down in the comments if you learned something new today then give this video a like and share it with the Fred but hey don't go jetting off anywhere just yet we have over two thousand cool videos for you to check out all you have to do is pick the left or right video click on it and enjoy remember stay on the bright side of life

Channel: BRIGHT SIDE

Views: 146,986

Rating: 4.8608556 out of 5

Keywords: plane facts, landing on the road, extreme landing, pilots, illegal landing, landing in traffic, landing on the highway, emergency landing, skilled pilots, miracle landing, landing in Manhattan, Thomas Fitzpatrick, landing in Prescott, landing on Huntington Beach, pilot challenge, James Bond, James Bond stunt, crash-landing, lightweight plane

Id: WQlgCDsXC7Q

Length: 9min 25sec (565 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 25 2020