A shocking video captured the terrifying moment a small plane appeared to “fall out of the sky” and hit a car on a busy Florida highway, leaving the driver alive but injured. The crash occurred on Interstate 95, a major north-south highway running along the East Coast in Cocoa, Florida.
Close-up footage from a dash cam captured the plane’s rapid descent – plunging into busy rush-hour traffic and flying straight into a car as it attempted to make an emergency landing.
“We just saw this plane fall out of the sky,” one eyewitness, Jim Coffey, told Spectrum News 13.
How did the collision develop?
A twin-engine, fixed-wing aircraft struck a 2023 Toyota Camry in the southbound lanes of Interstate 95 in Cocoa, Fla., around 5:45 p.m. Monday, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. The plane rear-ended the car and briefly bounced on it before veering slightly to the left and plummeting down — sparks flying across the tarmac, as seen in footage shot from a vehicle just behind the Camry.
The person behind the wheels of the Camry, a 57-year-old woman, suffered minor injuries and was taken to a nearby hospital, FHP officials said. The pilot, a 27-year-old man from Orlando, and his 27-year-old passenger from Temple Terrace escaped uninjured. Neither has been publicly identified and both remained at the scene, the New York Post reported
Describing the incident as a “plane falling out of the sky,” Coffey told Spectrum News 13 the plane missed his own vehicle by mere seconds. His son Peter Coffey, who was also in the car, said he initially hoped the plane would land safely on the shoulder.
“I noticed it was there because the plane was there, I thought, ‘I hope it lands on the side,'” Peter Coffey recalled. “I thought it might go around and not hit the car, but boom, the wheel just hit the back of the car,” NYP quoted him as saying.
FAA to investigate
The Federal Aviation Administration will lead the investigation into the emergency landing, while the Florida Highway Patrol is conducting a separate probe into the crash.
