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Plane dodges traffic, makes emergency landing on Swain County highway

By Andrew James

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    SWAIN COUNTY, North Carolina (WLOS) — News 13 has new video showing the moment a single-engine plane made an emergency landing on a Swain County Highway Sunday morning, July 3, 2022.

According to the Swain County Sheriff’s Office, the plane landed on Highway 19 around 11:50 a.m. Sunday. No injuries were reported.

Pilot Vincent Fraser said he was flying with his father-in-law after looking at property he purchased near Fontana Lake.

That’s when he said the engine started to fail.

“I started going through my checklist and I was able to get the aircraft to restart and kind of fly a little bit, but she would only fly for 3 to 5 seconds, and then she would come back down and start to sink again,” he said.

With the plane dropping lower, Fraser looked for a safe place to land.

With the difficult mountainous terrain, Highway 19 was the best spot.

“By the grace of God, I looked to my left, and you couldn’t see it before because, you know, it’s just all valleys and mountains, but there’s a road — that road that I landed on just right there, perfectly lined up,” he said.

Dodging multiple lanes of traffic and power lines, Fraser made a successful emergency landing.

Fraser will fly home to Florida this week. He said he received his private pilot license last October and has just under 100 hours of flying experience.

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