LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. – As first responders went to the scene of an emergency landing Tuesday afternoon on Interstate 470, onlookers also went out to see the plane sitting in the passing lane as traffic inched by on the shoulder.
Against the odds, somehow neither the pilot nor anyone else on the interstate was injured, leaving many to marvel at the peculiar scene in Lee’s Summit.
“Kind of crazy, but I mean it’s 2020, we have the coronavirus going on, we have killer hornets and now we have a plane on the highway,” said Jon Greenwald of Lee’s Summit.
Many reacted with stunned laughter as onlookers stuck in traffic pulled off the highway and parked at a nearby business to get a peek at the plane.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before. And I hope I never see it again, but at least there’s no crash, there’s no broken glass everywhere,” said Jill Underwood of Lee’s Summit.
“For me it’s kudos to the pilot. He really knew what he was doing, and I give kudos to the drivers on the highway because they saw it and reacted in the proper manner, and nobody’s hurt.”
Greenwald had similar praise for the pilot.
“My only reaction is how he managed to land the plane without crushing any cars,” he said.
The crowd stuck around for about 90 minutes until a crew used a tow rope to hook the plane up to the back of a pickup truck and move it off the highway. I-470 reopened to normal traffic on an otherwise abnormal afternoon.
