Small plane lands on Thruway in Albany

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEWS10) — It is an emergency landing that authorities are calling a Christmas miracle. A small twin-engine plane landed on the Thruway northbound by Exit 23 in Albany. You can see the plane on the Thruway in the video above.

The plane was traveling from South Carolina and landed on the Thruway after encountering engine trouble. “The pilot realized he was not going to successfully reach the airport. Observed the thruway down below and decided to make an emergency landing. So, he successfully landed the plane, amazingly, without striking any vehicles,” said Major Andre Ray with the New York State Police.

“It was just something out of a movie scene today. I mean, you hear about things like that, you know, you read about things like that. You don’t actually get to see them in your own two eyes,” said eyewitness Corey Wollard.

Wollard was on his way to Manhattan for work when he and his work buddy saw the miraculous landing right in front of them. “As we were approaching around Exit 23, we just have to look up to the sky. I mean, and unbelievably enough, we see a plane coming in for a landing. I mean, at that point that we said it was already so low,” explained Wollard.  He went on to say, “We didn’t get stopped fully, opposed to where the other side actually had it already cleared out for his runway to land.” 

There were two passengers on board when the pilot had to make the call to land. Minor injuries were reported. But no one was seriously hurt.

“The plane he was flying is an older airplane. That aircraft would suffer from carburetor ice, where during icing conditions such as today, you know, the engines would ice over,” said David Prescott, President of Hangar 743 and the Warbird Factory, where the pilot and his father work. Prescott says you can’t train for something like this. “Certain situations Logan ran into, you can’t plan for it. You can’t prepare for it. You know, you can’t forecast what’s going to happen. It’s just you have to know how to react when it does,” said Prescott.

The plane has since been removed from the Thruway and is now being stored at the tandem lot at Exit 24. It will then be on its way to the Warbird Factory at Hangar 743 at the Albany County Airport.

“The great news is, is there was no crash or no damage, no incident at all. And that’s, you know, I think that’s a testament to Logan’s training,” said Prescott.

The New York State Police confirm the FAA is now in charge of the investigation. The plane is likely to be on the move again Saturday once weather and traffic are clearer and it can be towed back to the hangar.

“This is very unique for a plane to land successfully on the Thruway not striking any cars and nobody injured,” said Ray.

Another plane had to make an emergency landing at the Albany International Airport about an hour later. According to the airport, the plane had a nose gear alert, which was checked, and no issue was found. The plane landed safely.