[kellyhound]

A remarkable and dramatic emergency landing unfolded when a single-engine plane touched down on an interstate while cars continued to navigate the highway in Arden Hills, a suburb in the Minneapolis area, during the nighttime hours.

In a video capturing the astonishing event, the pilot skillfully executed the landing, matching the speed of vehicles traveling on Interstate 35, a major roadway in the region. The Bellanca Viking aircraft appeared to have encountered an engine failure, leading to this extraordinary maneuver.

Brittany Yurik, who was the sole occupant of an SUV that had a close encounter with the single-engine aircraft, recounted the heart-stopping moment. She shared that she spotted the plane approaching her vehicle merely a second before the collision occurred.

Despite the severe damage sustained by her car, Yurik emerged from the incident without any injuries. Remarkably, the pilot responsible for the emergency landing, 52-year-old Craig Gifford, and his passenger also escaped unscathed.

Yurik expressed her interactions with Gifford, describing him as kind and apologetic. He took the time to explain the circumstances leading to the emergency landing. The collective sentiment among those involved was one of disbelief and gratitude for their well-being in the face of such a harrowing experience.

[William May]

Could have been much worse.

[durt]

^^

[hammersquash]

Pretty good IMO. I owned a 17-30 Super Viking about 8 years ago for two years and they are a stone when the Continental 520 looses power. They also have a tendency to take off to the left if full elevator isn't applied after landing. The retractable nose gear has a small brake shoe to aid in directional control at these hot landing speeds. The BSV stalls at about 75mph and require a slight power on landing at about 90mph. Given these factors he planted it about as well as anyone could.
Beautiful plane, tube construction, wooden wing with dacron covering, 300hp but thirsty as hell at about 14gph. sure was nice to cruise at 160kts though. Closest thing to owning a budget Ferrari in the sky. These planes are actually very reasonable to buy if you can find a good aircraft maintenance engineer to help you keep it in the air.
Fuel management is one of the reasons I got rid of it. With 5 fuel tanks (two in each wing and one reserve in the back) and a fuel selector valve in a busy cockpit in IFR it doesn't take much to run one dry. I believe fuel starvation due to poor tank management has taken quite a few of these out of the fleet. I much prefer the simple left/right/both selector on a 172 with high wing visibility for fun flying.

[NOUSERNAME]

Luck, timing and piloting skill made this a cool, instead of a tragic video.

[William May]

Originally Posted by hammersquash ↗

Pretty good IMO. I owned a 17-30 Super Viking about 8 years ago for two years and they are a stone when the Continental 520 looses power. They also have a tendency to take off to the left if full elevator isn't applied after landing. The retractable nose gear has a small brake shoe to aid in directional control at these hot landing speeds. The BSV stalls at about 75mph and require a slight power on landing at about 90mph. Given these factors he planted it about as well as anyone could.
Beautiful plane, tube construction, wooden wing with dacron covering, 300hp but thirsty as hell at about 14gph. sure was nice to cruise at 160kts though. Closest thing to owning a budget Ferrari in the sky. These planes are actually very reasonable to buy if you can find a good aircraft maintenance engineer to help you keep it in the air.
Fuel management is one of the reasons I got rid of it. With 5 fuel tanks (two in each wing and one reserve in the back) and a fuel selector valve in a busy cockpit in IFR it doesn't take much to run one dry. I believe fuel starvation due to poor tank management has taken quite a few of these out of the fleet. I much prefer the simple left/right/both selector on a 172 with high wing visibility for fun flying.

Thanks for the input! Always nice to have someone who has experience or knows specifics about the machine to add their thoughts!