Watch: Small Plane Lands on Lehigh County, PA, Interstate: Fire Chief Discusses Response

Graysen Golter

The Morning Call

(TNS)

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.

Trooper Nathan Branosky, a state police spokesperson, reported the plane landed around 9:19 a.m. in the highway’s eastbound lanes in Weisenberg Township, near the Lynnport/New Smithville exit.

WATCH: Interstate 78 emergency plane landing caught on video

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.

The aircraft departed from Solberg–Hunterdon 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.

The single-engine plane was a Commander Aircraft Corp. 114-B, manufactured in 1995, according to the Federal Aviation Administration aircraft registry. It was later towed to Queen City Airport in Allentown, according to the Weisenberg Volunteer Fire Department.

The FAA is investigating the incident.

The landing was captured in a video shared by Emily Rivera that quickly went viral on social media. The video shows the plane coming in slightly hard, but otherwise making a smooth landing down the highway.

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’s wing.

Eastbound I-78 traffic was being diverted at Exit 40 (Krumsville/Kutztown). Westbound lanes remained open, but traffic was slow in the area.

All I-78 lanes reopened around 1 p.m.

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 “bumper-to-bumper” traffic due to people slowing down to look at the plane.

“The 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,” she said. “And then all of a sudden my husband said, ‘It’s a plane on the highway,’ and I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’ “

It was unlike anything Schnecker had seen before, she said.

“It was just unbelievable,” she said.

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