On April 16, 2020, a small, low-flying plane was forced to make an emergency landing on a highway in Québec, Canada. The pilot’s masterful landing was caught on camera, and the thrilling footage quickly went viral.
Leclerc’s short video begins with the Piper PA-28 Cherokee plane still airborne above the highway, just south of Québec City’s Jean Lesage International Airport. The plane, clearly in distress, has black smoke billowing from its left-hand side.
Rather than appearing to panic or flying erratically, however, the pilot—who has yet to be identified—simply descends slowly toward the highway and lands on the road, gently and precisely, before blending in with the surrounding traffic. The only apparent imposition on the traffic is the plane’s wingspan, which takes up all three driving lanes.
After coasting for a few hundred yards, the plane pulls over to the right-hand side of the highway and comes to a stop. With the highway’s left lane freed up again, Leclerc’s vehicle passes by.
Another spectator, Jean-Paul Daoust, witnessed the impromptu landing from the parking lot of his garden center and admitted he was “pretty surprised” to see a small plane casually coast onto Highway 40. “First time I’ve ever seen a plane on a highway, except in the movies,” he said.
The Quebec provincial police later confirmed that a mechanical problem on board the plane had necessitated the emergency landing.
One social media user commented, “Oh my gosh, that pilot has skills to land in traffic like that!”
“I liked how he pulled over to the side and that one little car was tailing him... ‘Hurry up, get out of the way,’” joked another.
“Wow,” another person chimed in. “Glad that wasn’t a larger plane. And glad he wasn’t in Salt Lake City. There would’ve been zero room and a lot of road rage.”
Meanwhile, many other viewers commented on the overwhelmingly calm response of the drivers to the unexpected presence of a small plane on the highway, as no honking of horns was heard and not one driver was forced off the road.
Just eight months prior to this small plane’s expertly executed emergency landing, another plane took drivers by surprise by landing on a Washington state highway. On Aug. 1, 2019, Washington state Trooper Clint Thompson was driving along Route 7, otherwise known as Pacific Avenue, when a low-flying plane came into view, stunning drivers into hitting their brakes.
The trooper followed the plane, which soon landed safely in the highway’s left turning lane and stopped at a red light at the intersection. It later transpired that a fuel system malfunction had necessitated the sudden landing.
“You don’t see a plane landing every day on Pacific Avenue,” said witness Dennis Diessner. “When he went by me, I could’ve reached out and touched the tip of his wing. That’s how close I was to that plane.”
Thanks to a stroke of luck, and some expert piloting, nobody was injured as a result of the epic emergency landing.
