Plane makes emergency landing on Powers Boulevard; Pilot’s mayday call captured on audio
Sadie Buggle
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) – Colorado Springs fire crews have confirmed no one was injured after a small plane made an emergency landing on the southbound side of Powers Boulevard early Wednesday morning.
The crash landing was reported at around 4:15 a.m. on Oct. 1 on Powers Boulevard, just north of Barnes Road. According to the Colorado Springs Fire Department (CSFD), three individuals were on board the aircraft – remarkably, none were injured in the crash.
The photo below, provided by CSFD, shows a small, damaged plane lying on the west side of Powers.
The department reported that fuel was leaking from the plane, but the leak was stopped and cleaned up.
Colorado Springs police closed the right lane of southbound Powers, approaching Barnes, for several hours as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) investigated the crash.
Police confirmed that the plane took off from the Colorado Springs Airport before the crash.
In audio from LiveATC of air traffic audio, the pilot can be heard repeating, “Mayday, mayday, mayday.”
Shortly after, air traffic control is heard saying, “Yeah, I was on the phone with the police. Yeah, I had an aircraft go down.”
This audio is provided above.
The events that led to the emergency landing are currently unclear.
KRDO13 spoke with the owner of the company that owns the plane, who said he rents planes out of the airport and told us the pilot reported trouble five minutes after take-off.
“Well, it’s not every day that you see a plane crash on Powers. I’m just really glad that they were able to crash safely with nobody getting injured,” said Stephanie Winther, who stopped to look at the aftermath of the crash.
A tow truck arrived shortly after 1 p.m. to begin removing the wreckage.
The FAA says it is still investigating what went wrong to cause the plane to crash-land on such a busy road in Colorado Springs. However, the FAA notes that pilots have wide discretion during an emergency and are trained to find the safest possible landing spot.