Accounts differ on where a plane made its emergency landing near Sonora on Oct. 27. Its eventual departure is clearer: officers closed Highway 120 in both directions so the aircraft could take off from the roadway, then it headed north toward Calaveras County, according to officials.
CHP Sonora said the Piper PA-28-180D Cherokee used Highway 120 as a runway, as reported by CBS News. Officers closed the highway in both directions near Sonora to clear the way for takeoff, the outlet reported, allowing the single-engine plane to lift off from the pavement.
The flight's earlier emergency landing occurred on Oct. 27. The Federal Aviation Administration attributed it to a fuel issue, according to CBS News, which reported that the plane came down on private property in a field near Highway 120 and La Grange Road.
Conflicting Accounts of Where the Plane Actually Went Down
The Union Democrat reported that the plane landed at about 6:05 p.m. on Oct. 27 in a field near Keystone Ranch, close to the Highway 108 junction with La Grange Road, with only the pilot aboard. The newspaper attributed to the National Transportation Safety Board an account of a forced landing after a loss of engine power near Sonora; the aircraft sustained no damage, it reported.
Whether the field sits nearer Highway 120 and La Grange Road or closer to Highway 108 and Keystone Ranch remains unclear across the two versions of events, but both accounts agree on the outcome: nobody was hurt. The Sheriff's Office stated that no injuries were reported, per the same report.
No Federal Investigation Expected
The National Transportation Safety Board said it would not investigate the Oct. 27 incident because it did not meet the agency's criteria for an aircraft accident, according to The Union Democrat.
Fuel data and a roadway contrast
The National Transportation Safety Board's 2017 safety alert said fuel-management issues were involved in an average of more than 50 accidents per year from 2011 to 2015. In those fuel-related accidents, fuel exhaustion accounted for 56% and fuel starvation for 35%, according to the NTSB. Those historical figures do not establish the cause of the Sonora landing. A separate roadway incident offers a contrast, not a parallel: WFLA reported that around noon on Nov. 7, a plane made a forced emergency landing near Interstate 75 and Bayshore Road in North Fort Myers, Florida. That was a landing near a roadway, rather than a takeoff from a highway cleared for the aircraft.
Nearly two weeks later, CHP Sonora coordinated the highway closure that allowed the Cherokee to take off under its own power. With Highway 120 cleared in both directions, the plane headed north toward Calaveras County, according to officials.
