The pilot of a small plane was forced to make an emergency landing on a Long Island highway Wednesday afternoon.
According to the FAA, the Cessna C206 aircraft landed in the westbound lanes of Sunrise Highway, near Exit 57 in Suffolk County, at around 1 p.m. yesterday. The pilot was the only person on board the plane, and the maneuver was a "precautionary landing," the FAA said. The cause of the improvised landing was not immediately clear.
"It wasn't good, but here I am," the pilot Jim O'Donnell said in an interview with WABC-7. "No bent metal."
Why is there a plane on sunrise highway pic.twitter.com/jf7Mucr4Pl
— julieann (@juliesforza) July 19, 2017
"He came in under the overpass," Suffolk County Police Chief Stuart Cameron told the outlet. "He kind of threaded the needle there, and it looks like he did a pretty nice job under the circumstances. He didn't hit any cars, and no one got hurt."
Sunrise Highway is not an entirely unprecedented spot for non-traditional touchdowns—two summers ago, a Long Island man landed his plane on the strip of highway twice within the span of eight days.