{"id":161987,"date":"2026-04-10T02:52:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T02:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/161987\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T02:52:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T02:52:21","slug":"a-plane-landed-between-highway-traffic-in-pennsylvania-and-not-a-single-car-was-touched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/161987\/","title":{"rendered":"A Plane Landed Between Highway Traffic In Pennsylvania, And Not A Single Car Was Touched"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n A pilot with a dead engine put his plane down across two lanes of I-78 and walked away without a scratch <\/p>\n

\" <\/p>\n

A small plane landed on I-78 after engine trouble over Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Pilot, passenger, and drivers all escaped unharmed in the incident.<\/p>\n

Federal investigators opened a probe into how the emergency unfolded.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s never good to lose an engine when one is in an airplane<\/a> that is currently high above the ground. Nevertheless, that\u2019s exactly what one pilot experienced in Pennsylvania over the weekend. Not only did this pilot manage to land the plane safely, but he did so while also avoiding drivers as he put his plane down on the highway.<\/p>\n

Just before 9:30 a.m. on Saturday, a 65-year-old pilot from Michigan safely landed his plane across two eastbound lanes of I-78 in Weisenberg Township, Lehigh County. According to WPVI<\/a>, the aircraft had departed Solberg Airport in New Jersey and was headed for Indiana when the pilot reported engine trouble while flying over Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Read: Airplane Overshoots Runway, Slams Into Hyundai In Texas<\/a><\/p>\n

Pennsylvania State Police<\/a> say the pilot radioed that he did not want to land on the highway, but quickly realized it was the only option left. Incredibly, he managed to bring the plane down without hitting a single vehicle. Witnesses who saw the landing say it looked more like something out of a movie than a real-life emergency.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was an Easter miracle,\u201d Victor Machese, who was driving nearby, said. According to him, the pilot kept the plane perfectly centered between the median and the shoulder, despite the aircraft stretching nearly the full width of two lanes.<\/p>\n

Another witness, Chase Galanti, said the pilot never appeared panicked as the aircraft came down. \u201cHe must have done the right things and kept his cool,\u201d Galanti said. That calm may have made all the difference. Neither the pilot nor his 34-year-old passenger from New Jersey was injured, and remarkably, no one on the interstate was hurt either.<\/p>\n

Several emergency crews converged on the scene to assist. \u201cWe don\u2019t anticipate an aircraft landing on your highway,\u201d said Weisenberg Volunteer Fire Chief Justin Oswald. Still, the response appears to have gone as smoothly as the landing itself. Crews eventually escorted the plane off the interstate and to an airport in Allentown, while other responders temporarily blocked ramps and exits.<\/p>\n

The FAA has already opened an investigation into the incident. No doubt, a detailed report<\/a> will be the result weeks or potentially months from now. But what really matters is that the pilot kept his cool and everything went as smoothly as anyone could have hoped for in such an emergency.<\/p>\n

Lead screenshot WGALTV<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A pilot with a dead engine put his plane down across two lanes of I-78 and walked away…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161988,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[30848,30578,67784,28,30,29,25188,420],"class_list":["post-161987","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-accidents","tag-airplane","tag-offbeat-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-reports","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161987","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161987"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161987\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}