Plane lands on truck

[4HolerPoler]

Plane touches down - on truck

Fabens - A small plane that had lost power briefly landed on top of an 18-wheeler truck before crashing on to the highway, authorities said. The two people aboard the plane came out unscathed, and the truck driver never heard a thing.

"Nothing happened to the truck, except for a couple of skid marks up on top," said trooper Lucila Torres of the Texas department of public safety. The single-engined plane carrying an El Paso couple fell off the trailer and landed upside down on Interstate 10 during the emergency landing on Thursday about 30km east of El Paso, Torres said.

Pilot Mark Taylor Davis, 45, and wife Mercedes, 42, were returning home from Austin when the 1967 Mooney M20F developed engine trouble, said state troopers. The engine died before the plane could reach an airstrip in Fabens. Truck driver Raymond Bennett White jun, 44, of Dayton, Texas, told state troopers he didn't hear anything when the plane landed on his trailer, Torres said. Federal aviation authorities investigators were reviewing the incident.

[newflyer]

Plane Lands On Truck (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6691101/)

[Gerard123]

Why didn't they just land on the road the truck was on ?

[michaelknight]

Possibly that the truck was in the way?

MK

[Gerard123]

Could be, I don't know the full situation , the story is missing plenty of details.

[ferrydude]

Trying to make a James Bond movie?

[Air-Geko]

If it wasn't for the falling off the side part, I thought the man would make a nice pilot for the U.S. Navy ... Then again, that's only valid if he was actually aiming for the tractor-trailor!

Air-Geko

[newflyer]

Was he ex-navy? Maybe he had a relapse! Was it a stunt?

Who knows!

[FlyboyUK]

Anyone else remeber the truck landing stunt that they did at some UK airshows about 10-15 years ago?:ok:

[RUDAS]

he was most probably aiming for the rod,with the truck being in the way and he undershot.terrifying!

[VectorLine]

Nothing happened to the truck, except for a couple of skid marks up on top,"

Yep, it would scare me too

:D :D :}

[Christo]

At the EAA airshow Wonderboom, South Africa, 2004

Scully Levin with his Cub. He landed and took off again after turning the car around at the end :cool:

http://hagar.up.ac.za/christo/roof.jpg

[cortilla]

maybe it was at night and he just didn't see the trailer hoping to land in between traffic? may be wrong, but that's my current thought.

[sky9]

Bet there were more "skidmarks" than on the roof of the truck.:D

[TheOddOne]

Anyone else remeber the truck landing stunt that they did at some UK airshows about 10-15 years ago?


That'd be Brendan O'Brien again, then.

A while ago the trailer, sponsored if memory serves by Ford (Iveco??) could be seen in a corner down at Headcorn.

Whatever else you say about Brendan (!) he's a great pilot!

Cheers,
The Odd One

[we_never_change]

I saw a Piper Cub land on a (moving) truck at an airshow at Shoreham (Brighton City) airport a couple of years ago.

WNC

[Joles]

On TV a few weeks ago I saw a stunt where a Piper deliberately landed on a truck or rather to be more precise inside the box from the rear !

That was deliberate.

But here...............I wonder what went in the ol flier's mind......

Cheers
Joles

[ozplane]

Martin Carrington was doing this stunt for Kia (?) Cars until recently. Prior to that somebody used to use a Cri-Cri TWIN to do the same thing for Mitsubishi. Who was that?

[DubTrub]

Oz,
The Cri-Cri thingy was Vic Norman, as I recall. Also a Broussard was in the team?

[Zlin526]

Tim Senior was the pilot who took off from the Mitsubishi Shogun in a Cri-Cri, but as far as I know, was unable to land back on. Dave Evans used a Super Decathlon and a Piper Cub to land on a trailer, also sponsored by Mitsubishi, and then Martin Carrington did it with a Kia Cars sponsored Piper Cub....Brendan O'Brien (and Pete Kynsey occasioanally) did it in the 80s sponsored by IVECO trucks and used a Piper Super Cub.

The Broussard was sponsored by Shape Yoghurt, and was used as a parachute drop aircraft...G-YYYY in an 'odd' multicoloured scheme

[shortstripper]

Small world isn't it?

Two names here have connections for me.

Brendan O'brien took down the power lines to my house (before I lived here) Apparently a Tigermoth or Stampe force landed in one of our fields here and Brendon was bought in to fly it out. After successfully extracting the aeroplane from the field, he came round for a low pass but didn't see the electricity wires.

Martyn Carrington was a young lad cleaning aeroplanes and cadging rides at Clacton when I trained there. I went back a couple of years later when he'd just passed his test and had a flight with him in a borrowed J3. He did a bit of a "drunken pilot" act and all I could do was sit and marvel at his deft of touch! Brilliant pilot!

SS

[david viewing]

Wise words from an instructor in Las Vegas many years ago:

"By all means line up with a highway if you have to make a forced landing. Then land beside it. That way you won't get mown down by traffic, someone will report the landing/wreck, and the ambulance can get to you easily."

Quite likely this chap was 'undertaken' by the truck doing 85 while he was landing at 70.

[7gcbc]

Super dec or anything with a spring steel u/c is a fair ask to land on a point, thats why the super cub was chosen subsequently.

you just cannot lose that "potential" outta the springs on first touch.

[slim_slag]

I seem to remember somebody recently landing on the back of a vehicle in Southern California, truck driver never knew the plane was there.


By all means line up with a highway if you have to make a forced landing. Then land beside it. That way you won't get mown down by traffic, someone will report the landing/wreck, and the ambulance can get to you easily."

You have to be careful of wires when putting down on a road, both across the road and those running down the side of the road. It might be better to actually line up just offset to the highway, that gives you a better view from your side window of both wires and any traffic on the road. If you line up on the road you might not see stuff below and behind you. If the road is clear you can then move across to land. If not, put it down by the side for reasons given above, but all things equal I'd rather have a road than a field. In cities you might not have much choice, it's the road or a building, but in the States plenty of city roads are wider than your average runway.

[MLS-12D]

Greg Koontz (http://www.gkairshows.com/docs/airshows.htm) also regularly lands a J-3 cub on the back of a pick-up truck, as part of his Flying Farmer / World's Smallest Airport airshow act.

[Flying Lawyer]

shortstripper

Dear me, I'd hate to think anyone would drag up some mistake I'd made about 14 years earlier - especially on a public forum.

I don't think it was a Tiger Moth or Stampe, but it's so long ago I can't remember. :rolleyes:

What I do remember was that his 'Truck Top Landing' act was superb - and very popular on the airshow circuit.

Tudor Owen

[shortstripper]

Fair point FL,

I've edited the post but not removed it, as it just goes to show even the best pilots (I was never disputing his abilities) can get it wrong occasionally.

Those telephone wires at the end of my strip look very vulnerable ... and if one day :\ .... well let's say "humble pie" and "eating" are a couple of phrases that spring to mind :hmm:

SS

[Flying Lawyer]

Much better. :ok:

The irony is that his preparation before flying the aircraft out of the field was very thorough according to those present. However, his focus was naturally on what was ahead of him, not what was behind the threshold and, when he decided to do an unplanned low pass before flying off ...........

The most unpleasant aspect was that the owner of the aircraft chose to report him to the CAA and demanded he be prosecuted. :rolleyes: The CAA obliged, and I became involved.

Fortunately, the court was persuaded to take a reasonable and realistic view and dealt with the case accordingly.

Tudor

[shortstripper]

I suppose this is getting a bit off topic, but as it follows on...

FL,

I certainly commend him for getting the aeroplane out of that particular field! I wonder if cost of dismantleing and carting persauded the owner to ask him to fly it out in the first place? .... no of course not :rolleyes: ho hum!

Funnily enough (or not) the power lines to my house do seem to be jinxed! It has eight joiners to remind everyone of that particular incident. Then in the time I've been here it's had a new main transformer fitted due to a suicidal squirrel blowing the last one up (1 in 100 chance of that happening apparently!), two more joiners from a swan hit, and a new section of multicore fitted where a JCB touched it with it's boom (that was a good old fire!). So what? you may say; well the section I'm talking about is only about 200 yrds long! :E

When it comes to unscrupulous owners, how about this?

Earlier this year a PA28 force landed in one of our fields due to carb ice. It's privately owned but used by a flying school. It was being flown by an instructor taking a trial lesson student for a flight to Sandown. After a good landing into long grass with no damage the pilot did all the correct things which included informing the owner. The owner turned up later with a couple of mechanics to check the aircraft out and we all stood around having a nice chat. I then suggested that it would be sensible for me to cut a strip in the long grass to aid TO. As it happened our tractor driver turned up, so I sent him off to get the mower and in no time a nice strip was cut. The instructor then took off and made his way back to base ... all nicely done and no damage (even the student was very happy with the fun of it all). The owner then thanked me a insisted I have £20 to buy myself and our tractor driver a drink. I reluctantly, but gratefully accepted and wished him well. Hmmm :mad: I wish I hadn't! A friend of mine happens to work for the same school and later informed me of the outcome. That nice owner charged them full rate for HIS time to go check the aeroplane (did he really need to go?), the cost of the two engineers (fair enough, though one would have been enough) .... and £200 payed to the farmer to cover the cost of mowing and as a "goodwill" gesture! .... nice man! :*

SS