Pilot's priority was his mom
Anchorage - An adventurous Alaskan pilot was taking no chances when his home-made plane's engine started acting up - after all, his mom from Kimberley, Northern Cape, was on board.
Kenneth McLeod made a safe emergency landing on the Seward highway when the plane he had built himself from a kit started giving trouble.
Kenneth said he was flying on Sunday afternoon near Whittier, about 128km southeast of Anchorage, when the engine began to surge.
He told his mother, Joy McLeod, to "buckle up".
"Is it OK?" she asked.
"No, it isn't OK," he said.
Alaska state troopers said Kenneth had planned to land at Girdwood Airport, but couldn't make contact with anyone there.
He found a break in traffic on a straight stretch of the Seward highway, which runs through Alaska and on down through Canada to connect to the United States mainland.
Traffic was not interrupted, said trooper Timothy Lewis, who was there.
"It's blue skies, sunshine. There're a lot of people on the highway," Lewis said.
Car pulled over
"It's amazing that he was able to land without injuring himself or any of the public."
The driver of a car that was ahead of the plane saw the aircraft and pulled over, said Kenneth.
Lewis said the pilot pushed the plane off the road before troopers arrived.
Kenneth is an experienced pilot with about 360 hours of flying under his belt.
This was his first emergency landing and he thought maybe there was some water in the fuel, he said.
No one was injured in the emergency landing.
News source: www.news24.co.za
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