Plane Lands Atop Truck

[Deputy]

FABENS, Texas (AP) - A small plane that had lost power briefly landed atop an 18-wheeler before crashing onto 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 top,'' said Trooper Lucila Torres, a spokeswoman for the Texas Department of Public Safety.

The single-engine plane carrying an El Paso couple fell off the trailer and landed upside down on Interstate 10 during the emergency landing Thursday about 19 miles east of El Paso, Torres said.

Pilot Mark Taylor Davis, 45, and wife Mercedes Davis, 42, were returning home from Austin when the 1967 Mooney M20F developed engine trouble, state troopers said. The engine died before the plane could reach an airstrip in Fabens.


Truck driver Raymond Bennett White Jr., 44, of Dayton, Texas, told state troopers he didn't hear anything when the plane landed atop his trailer, Torres said.


FAA investigators were reviewing the incident.

[Politically Incorrect]

Question, did they try to land on the truck on purpose?
If so why?

and if not then the plane didn't land on the truck it crashed into it

[4_Series_Scania]

the truck driver never heard a thing.

Typical!  ;D

Seriously, unless it made a loud noise, he would'nt have felt a thing.

[TacitBlue]

maybe they figured there were doomed either way, so why not do something cool like land on top of a semi.

[4_Series_Scania]

I'm going to fit some browning 303's to my Scania R124 tomorrow, that'll sort em.  ;)  ;D

[gn85]

The truck driver probably forgot to mention the landing lights he installed on the roof of the trailer.  Make unsuspecting VFR pilots try some tricky landing techniques.  :o

[Hagar]

"Nothing happened to the truck, except for a couple of skid marks up top,''
Hmmmm, never mind the truck. If the darned thing drove right in front of me just as I was making a textbook forced landing I imagine I would have skid marks on my underpants. Look out Mark, there's a blinking great truck.........! Oooops, too late.

Glad they got away with it anyway.

[Deputy]

My burning question is, why did they try to land on a trailer, when, they could, much more safely land on the ground? Or did they neglect to notice the big thing moving really fast on the highway?

[4_Series_Scania]

Or did they neglect to notice the big thing moving really fast on the highway?

If anything like your average driver, I'd say certainly!
 ;D

[Felix/FFDS]

My burning question is, why did they try to land on a trailer, when, they could, much more safely land on the ground? Or did they neglect to notice the big thing moving really fast on the highway?

This one's easy, you're coming down, probably at little over the speed the truck is barreling along, the Mooney is a low wing plane, you can't see anything below you...

[Jared]

Very interesting, now let's see them land it on top of a building...

[Scottler]

Keep in mind that we're talking about a dead engine...they really didn't have too much say over where it came down and where it didn't.  There comes a point where even the best glider in the world has to be brought down...it just so happened in this case that there was a truck there.  lol

[Deputy]

Keep in mind that we're talking about a dead engine...they really didn't have too much say over where it came down and where it didn't.  There comes a point where even the best glider in the world has to be brought down...it just so happened in this case that there was a truck there.  lol

Yes, true. In all likelyhood, (Referring to the famous quote " Whatever can go wrong will" ) the pilot avoided plowing into the back doors of the trailer. If he could control whether or not he plowed into the back of the trailer, he certainly could have controlled his landing better - either landing in front of the big rig (and hoping to god that the driver sees them and stops before the plane does) or land behind the big rig.

I feel it'd be hard to argue that he didn't know where he was going to land due to visibility, because you can still see in front of you; and unless the plane just 'drops' out of the sky, the pilot has some control of his forward flight, therefore, enabling him to see what he is about to land upon.  It seems to me that he capitalized on the emergency, and tried to make it on the TV show "Jackass"


In other words, don't land on a moving object if you can help it, especially if its only 3 inches wider on both sides than your wheels.

[Felix/FFDS]

Very interesting, now let's see them land it on top of a building...

Actually, it happened several years back in Orlando, on approach from the East into Orlando Executive airport.  A lightplane lost power and landed atop a two story office building about a mile short of the runway...

[Woodlouse2002]

Seriously, unless it made a loud noise, he would'nt have felt a thing.

This is probably one of the funniest things i've heard on the forums. Do you think if it made a really big jolt he would have heard it?

Now, for why it landed on the truck, I see it like this. The truck would have been travelling at 70mph. The plane, even when gliding would have been at the same speed at least. So the pilot see's a clear highway and decides to attept an emergancy landing there. This is while the truck is below and behind. So the pilot loses hight and lines up with the road, the truck is still behind and below and so cannot be seen by the aircraft. The aircraft slows up for landing, the truck catches up and is directly below the aircraft. The aircraft then decends some more in an attempt to land and ends up on top of the truck which is still below the aircraft. The aircraft then flips off the truck and lands on the road upside down and behind the truck. Now they can see it.

It's probably a good thing they did land on top of the truck. It wouldn't have been good if they'd landed on the road only to have the truck plough into their tail.