A dramatic emergency landing on a busy Florida motorway left a woman injured after a small aircraft plunged from the sky and crashed into her car during rush hour traffic on Monday. Shocking dashcam footage captured the moment the Beechcraft 55 swooped down onto Florida’s I 95 at about 5.45 pm and slammed into a Toyota Camry while attempting a daring emergency landing. The horrifying impact sent the aircraft crashing into the rear of the vehicle, bouncing onto its roof before slamming down beside it in a shower of sparks as other vehicles narrowly avoided the wreckage.
Florida Highway Patrol officials confirmed that the 57 year old woman driving the Camry was rushed to a nearby hospital but remarkably escaped with only minor injuries. The pilot, a 27 year old man from Orlando, and his 27 year old passenger from Temple Terrace were not injured and reportedly walked away from the crash without a scratch. Both men remained at the scene as investigators examined the cause of the incident, with the pilot claiming there were engine problems with the twin engine propeller aircraft moments before the crash.
Eyewitness Jim Coffey, whose dashcam captured part of the incident, described the terrifying moment, saying, “We just saw this plane drop out of the sky.” He said the aircraft missed his own car by just seconds. “I noticed it was there, because there’s a plane right there, I was like, ‘Hopefully it lands to the side.’ I thought it might maybe aim around and not hit the car, but bam, the wheel just smacked right on the back of the car,” he said. His son, Peter, added that the moment was shocking to witness as the aircraft narrowly avoided multiple vehicles before impact. “Fortunately, the car didn’t roll, it kind of mashed and went to the side,” Jim added.
Additional images from the scene showed the mangled car and the damaged plane, which appeared to have lost its nose and one of its wheels during the collision.
