Plane makes emergency landing on highway

A student-pilot got more than a flight lesson Monday when the two-seater he was flying was forced to make an emergency landing on U.S. 41 in North Cobb.

"You can't get that kind of training anywhere," said Mike Davidson, a 30-year pilot and the instructor in the Arrow 600 Sport.

Davidson, of Canton, was seated behind his student, Mallory Zackery of Jonesboro, in the Italian-made Sky Arrow when electrical failure started a fire. The two-year-old plane was about 1,000 feet above the ground at the time.

"We got some smoke in the cockpit, which is a bad thing in aviation ..." Davidson said. He said he contacted the tower at McCollum Field, which cleared them to land immediately.

"A heartbeat after that, the engine failed," said Davidson, a commercial airline pilot for JetBlue.

No one was injured when the small plane landed in the southbound lane of a busy highway about five miles from McCollum Field between Acworth and Kennesaw. After the landing, the pilots taxied the plane into the parking lot of nearby Cyrus Creek townhomes.

Davidson said he looked for a field to land in but found none, so had to put it down on the highway around 11:30 a.m. "Unfortunately the best option was [Highway] 41," he said.

He said there was traffic on the road, but somehow the pilots managed to miss it, probably due in part to traffic signals at a nearby intersection.

"There was a guy in a pickup truck and he had the presence to slow down and stop and the traffic behind him stopped," Davidson said. The truck driver then followed the plane into the parking lot, before leaving.

"It's cool that he was able to miss cars and cars missed him," said Karen Scotto, who brought her sons 7-year-old Daniel and Eric, 4, to see the plane.

Davidson said he was on a "check ride" with a student pilot when the problems developed. He said the student had "retired to the shade of the hangar back at McCollum."

The plane is owned by Hansen Air Group at McCollum Field. Jon Hansen, owner of the plane, praised Davidson's performance. "He did an excellent job of putting it down" safely, Hansen said.

Asked if he felt lucky or unlucky, Davidson laughed and said, "Unlucky probably to be standing here talking to you but lucky in the fact that the traffic situation was what it was and the emergency engine failure actually happened where it did."

Within moments of the plane coming to a stop, nearby neighbors and others driving by stopped to snap pictures of the plane and hear Davidson's story.

"I landed the plane on 41, and turned off into a dog-gone parking lot," Davidson told his wife, who called his cell phone.

Cobb Fire, Cobb Police and Acworth responded to the incident, said Major Wayne Dennard of the Acworth Police Department. He said the investigation would be turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board.

"God always helps a crazy person like me," Davidson said. "I've got a strong faith, and I don't get rattled by much."