{"id":565625,"date":"2026-04-05T07:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/565625\/"},"modified":"2026-04-05T07:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-05T07:50:10","slug":"plane-lands-on-interstate-78-in-lehigh-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/565625\/","title":{"rendered":"Plane lands on Interstate 78 in Lehigh County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A small plane made an emergency landing on Interstate 78 in Lehigh County on Saturday morning, shutting down a stretch of the highway and causing major traffic delays for hours.<\/p>\n<p>Trooper Nathan Branosky, a state police spokesperson, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/PSPTroopMPIO\/status\/2040428499534557451\" rel=\"nofollow\">reported<\/a> the plane landed around 9:19 a.m. in the highway\u2019s eastbound lanes in Weisenberg Township, near the Lynnport\/New Smithville exit.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcall.com\/2026\/04\/04\/interstate-78-plane-emergency-landing-video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WATCH: Interstate 78 emergency plane landing caught on video<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Two people were on board the plane but were not injured, he said. The pilot, a a 65-year-old man from Michigan, was flying with a 34-year-old woman from New Jersey, Branosky said.<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft departed from Solberg\u2013Hunterdon Airport in Readington Township, New Jersey, and was headed to Indiana. However, the pilot reported unknown engine problems and attempted to fly to a local airport before landing on the highway, Branosky said.<\/p>\n<p>The single-engine plane was a Commander Aircraft Corp. 114-B, manufactured in 1995, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/registry.faa.gov\/aircraftinquiry\/Search\/NNumberResult\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Federal Aviation Administration aircraft registry<\/a>. It was later towed to Queen City Airport in Allentown, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/WeisenbergFire\/posts\/pfbid02MjGpXoSBuxs3cRcWtEzCyQT7wz6jbxAJN86MdXDVm8gLeCyvp83JgabpG853rGR3l\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">according to the Weisenberg Volunteer Fire Department<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The FAA is investigating the incident.<\/p>\n<p>The landing was captured in a video shared by Emily Rivera that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reels\/DWuGO4pD-N8\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">quickly went viral on social media<\/a>. The video shows the plane coming in slightly hard, but otherwise making a smooth landing down the highway.<\/p>\n<p>For an unusual incident, photos showed a calm scene as emergency responders including state police, EMS and firefighters worked near the plane. A man was seen sitting on the plane\u2019s wing.<\/p>\n<p>Eastbound I-78 traffic was being diverted at Exit 40 (Krumsville\/Kutztown). Westbound lanes remained open, but traffic was slow in the area.<\/p>\n<p>All I-78 lanes reopened around 1 p.m.<\/p>\n<p>Debra Schnecker, a Morning Call employee, said she and her husband Jim were traveling westbound on I-78 around 11 a.m. when they encountered \u201cbumper-to-bumper\u201d traffic due to people slowing down to look at the plane.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe first thing I saw was pretty far away. We saw a bunch of lights and trucks and we thought it was a bad accident [with] the way it looked with the lights and the blockage until we got closer,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd then all of a sudden my husband said, \u2018It\u2019s a plane on the highway,\u2019 and I\u2019m like, \u2018Wait, what?\u2019 \u201c<\/p>\n<p>It was unlike anything Schnecker had seen before, she said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was just unbelievable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small plane made an emergency landing on Interstate 78 in Lehigh County on Saturday morning, shutting down&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565626,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,4,69156,75221,983,3,3234,31300,6145,21,19,22,20,25,24,250028],"class_list":{"0":"post-565625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-crime-and-public-safety","11":"tag-lehigh-county","12":"tag-local-news","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-pennsylvania","15":"tag-top-stories-tmc","16":"tag-transportation","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-weisenberg-township"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565625\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565626"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}