Stunt pilot fly's plane underneath interstate sign in Pensacola

[W0QNX]

OK so I editorialized the title. It should be "pilot dead sticks plane onto I-10" in Pensacola. But man what a ride that must have been. An instructor and a student took off from Pensacola airport and flew north 25 miles or so. Coming back in to land they had the engine quit just a few miles from the airport. They landed just east of the Davis I-10 entrance ramp on I-10, probably the busiest ramp in town and many of us have been right there.

A truck drivers onboard video was picked up by everyone and wow what a ride the plane had. I clipped a screenshot of of the video to show the plane zoomed over the truck at about 10 feet and swooped under a sign trestle that spans the I-10 highway. Crazy landing for sure but dang good control skills by the Lady instructor.

If you do Youtube I'd bet Blancolirio has this on his channel soon.

 

[Sadlsor]

...any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.
And any landing where you can reuse the aircraft is an even better one.

 

[TipSTer]

Just WOW!

 

[ST1100Y]

... the vertical stabilizer and the right wingtip must have missed that trestle beam/tube merely by inches...

 

[Weaselinsuit]

I imagine the seats will need to be replaced.

Heck of a landing.

 

[mello dude]

Under the road sign?!!! Definately a schincter pucker moment..Wow!
Wonder if that is the instructor or student who is sitting in the picture with the person in the blue T-shirt standing over them..??

 

[Oldbikefixr]

...any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.
And any landing where you can reuse the aircraft is an even better one.

Wasn't reused immediately. Bet the seats needed a good cleaning.

 

[W0QNX]

Under the road sign?!!! Definately a schincter pucker moment..Wow!
Wonder if that is the instructor or student who is sitting in the picture with the person in the blue T-shirt standing over them..??

It appears the blue Tshirt girl is the instructor and the overwhelmed student is sitting.

Instructor was 21 year old Emily Shelton with 1400 flight hours per my readings. The student was on his first flight. Per this statement she did the great landing.

 

[Sadlsor]

Proper prior (pilot) preparation prevents piss-poor performance.
Along with, maybe sometimes, nerves of steel...?

 

[Weaselinsuit]

Excellent example of how "muscle memory", formed through repetition, takes over

 

[mello dude]

Huge shout out and kudos to Emily Shelton!

 

[sirbike]

Wasn't reused immediately. Bet the seats needed a good cleaning.

Judging from the instructors calm demeanor I’d say just one seat needed cleaning.
This reminds me of a saying kind of like, success is the result of using skills to take advantage of luck.

She was so smooth.
Speaking of smooth, being that close over the truck there was likely some wake turbulence to compensate for.

 

[dduelin]

Proper prior (pilot) preparation prevents piss-poor performance.
Along with, maybe sometimes, nerves of steel...?

There’s also a fair amount of luck involved with a good outcome off field landing. Not to take away from the young ladies performance at all, she did great under what had to be great pressure. Sometimes there isn’t any pavement to land on. When I was on my fourth dual flight working on my private license we had an engine failure over a wooded area with Choctawhatchee Bay on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other side. There wasn’t pavement to land on other than skinny Highway 98 with lots of traffic. After clearing high tension power lines on final my instructor put our Cessna 150 down in a clearing in a pine forest. There wasn’t enough room to run out, but the trees were saplings and slowed the plane gently enough that we didn’t even get a bruise from our seat and shoulder harnesses but the bent aircraft never flew again.