Photo by Gator Hudson
A truck tows the plane back to Union County Airport
Daniel Prince
Pilot, plane unhurt
When you’re driving, you don’t expect a plane to land in the road, but that’s what happened on Union Boulevard Thursday morning. A woman flying from Myrtle Beach to Knoxville had to take an unexpected detour into Union when her 1977 Beechcraft A36 single-engine plane ran into trouble. Union County Airport Manager Ronnie Wade told WBCU News what happened:
(audio at bottom of page)
According to data on the flight from the website flightaware.com, the plane was about 5800 feet in the air when it began losing altitude at around 9:24 a.m., when it was just east of River Road near Sunset Farm. Within two minutes, the plane had dropped to around 3500 feet as the pilot began to turn southwest to try to make it to the Union County Airport. Continuing to lose altitude, the plane crossed East Main Street near Ottaray around 9:29, flying at about 1200 feet. At 9:30, she landed the plane on Union Boulevard just past the South Duncan Bypass. During the six minutes of the in-flight emergency, the plane lost altitude at an average rate of 16 feet per second. The portion of Union Boulevard where she landed was blocked off by emergency vehicles as they ensured that plane and pilot were all right. A truck was brought in to tow the plane back to the Union County Airport at around 10:45. The pilot remained there until she could be interviewed by the FAA. She declined to make any comments to WBCU News about the events of the morning.