STATE POLICE and DOT officials look over a small plane that made a emergency landing in the southbound lane of Interstate 295 at mile 13 in Falmouth during evening rush hour traffic on Thursday. No injuries were reported.
A pilot managed to land his small plane during rush hour on I-295 outside of Portland without damaging any vehicles or causing injuries, but the episode caused a traffic jam that stretched for miles Thursday evening, state police said.
Sachin Hejeji of Falmouth reported having engine trouble while flying from Waterville to Portland and had to set his plane down on the busy interstate in Cumberland before taxiing several hundred yards into Falmouth, state police said.
The single-engine Cessna 152 was parked on the side of the highway, limiting southbound traffic to one lane. Southbound traffic quickly backed up about 10 miles to Freeport, and northbound traffic backed up as well, officials said.
Hejeji was trying to make it to the Portland International Jetport but had to land on the highway.
Jacob Alves, 27, was carpooling from Yarmouth toward Portland when he saw brake lights flashing and the plane’s landing lights ahead. He said the pilot was out of the plane by the time his vehicle passed.
Alves said he saw the lights coming down and didn’t realize what happened until they reached the plane.
“Traffic was just trying to get around it,” he said. Some drivers tried to go around while others just drove under the plane’s wing as it overhung the left-hand lane.
The Maine Department of Transportation planned to load the airplane on a flatbed truck and haul it to a DOT lot in Yarmouth, said spokesman Ted Talbot. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board were investigating.
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