No injuries were reported and traffic was largely unaffected after an airplane landed on Interstate 575 near Canton Tuesday evening.
Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services spokesman Tim Cavender said officials were notified of the aircraft’s emergency landing shortly after 7 p.m. Firefighters arrived on the and found a small Beechcraft Sundowner airplane that had landed on the northbound lane of I-575 just north of Airport Road.
“The instructor indicated that the plane lost power about 500 feet up into the air. They were coming off of the county airport when they lost power and had to make an emergency landing on 575,” Cavender told AM750 and 95.5FM News/Talk WSB.
Cavender said one motorist saw the plane approach the highway and began to slow down to keep traffic from getting in its way while it approached I-575. Once the plane touched down, the instructor steered it off the highway to keep from obstructing traffic.
Neither the 38-year-old male pilot nor the 53-year-old male flight instructor were injured in the landing, Cavender said.
He added that representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration will inspect the plane to determine why it lost power.
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