The latest
November 8, 2026, at 9:00 a.m. Central time (10:00 a.m. Eastern time).
Two pilots and a motorist walked away uninjured after a single-engine plane made an emergency crash-landing onto a bustling multi-lane highway in Southwest Florida on Saturday, clipping the back of a moving pickup truck before skidding to a halt, according to the New York Post and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office.
The incident occurred just before noon on Bayshore Road (State Road 78), directly adjacent to the Interstate 75 interchange in North Fort Myers. The 1963 Cessna 172D Skyhawk, registered as N2905U, suffered a sudden catastrophic engine failure approximately 50 minutes after taking off from Sebring Regional Airport, forcing the crew to seek an immediate landing strip among weekend traffic, FOX 13 Tampa Bay reported.
Despite heavy midday traffic and overhead utility cables, the aircraft touched down at an angle across the westbound lanes, slid across the median, and struck the rear bed of an eastbound pickup truck towing a utility trailer before coming to rest upright.
Gliding over traffic and surviving the impact
Astonishing dashcam and mobile phone video captured by stunned drivers showed the high-wing Cessna descending steeply through the trees, banking sharply to align with Bayshore Road’s westbound lanes. As the landing gear struck the asphalt, the aircraft bounced twice and spun sideways, shedding wing debris as its starboard wingtip and fuselage collided with the passing pickup.
Lee County Sheriff Carmine Marceno confirmed in a statement that deputies and crews from the Bayshore Fire Protection & Rescue Service District reached the scene within four minutes of the 11:47 a.m. dispatch call. First responders found both pilots had exited the cockpit unaided, while the driver of the pickup truck remained seated and unhurt.
“It is nothing short of miraculous that with the volume of cars traveling on Bayshore Road on a Saturday midday, nobody in the aircraft or on the ground suffered physical injuries,” Sheriff Marceno said, praising the pilot’s split-second control in avoiding head-on collisions with oncoming vehicles.
