On the last 3rd day, when your little one’s engine plane failed three times, Vincent Fraser had no choice but to make an emergency landing in mountainous terrain south of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Caroline .
GoPro’s video of his perilous landing in the west of the state shows the pilot maneuvering his single-engine aircraft under city power lines and entering the dual center lane of a highway, with cars passing in both directions.
Fraser, who was flying with his father-in-law, spoke to CNN this Monday (11), about his distressing disembarkation.
“The only thing that really crossed my mind was that I needed to keep my father-in-law safe, and I needed to keep people safe. I was just trying to do the best I could without hurting anyone,” Fraser recalled.
They were over Lake Fontana when they had their first engine failure, and Fraser could not see any roads due to the trees and mountainous landscape there.
“So, at first, there were no options,” he said.
At one point, he thought a bridge in the distance was his “best and only chance,” but the plane was too low to land and there were too many vehicles to attempt the maneuver without serious risk of injuring or killing anyone, he explained.
The next option was the river in front of the bridge, which Fraser said he decided to land on when, “by some miracle”, the road appeared.
“That road… it just appeared on my left. I couldn’t see it before because of the mountains, valleys and trees.”
Fortunately, Fraser had enough altitude to turn the aircraft onto the highway at the last second.
Fraser’s GoPro camera video shows him landing in the middle of the runway as traffic passes on both sides of the aircraft.
“They must have been so terrified,” Fraser pointed out of the people on the ground.
Swain County Sheriff Curtis Cochran praised the landing in a Facebook post. “What an excellent, victimless job. Incredible”.
“There were so many things that could have been catastrophic but didn’t,” Cochran praised.
After landing, a mechanic checked the plane, which was towed up a mountain to a longer, higher road, Fraser said.
Three days later, he took off from the highway.
The takeoff was “terrifying,” Fraser confessed, but he turned it into a “Navy objective.”
“I went back to when I was in the Marine Corps and made that takeoff my mission. And so, you know, I knew the plane was safe, I knew the plane was checked and I had the training.”
Despite the confidence, her nerves were on edge.
“I honestly just wanted to turn it off, go out and throw up. You just can’t believe this is actually happening.”
The takeoff, however, was a success. Mission Accomplished.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
