Police Escort For Tennessee Takeoff

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It’s not every day a pilot gets a police escort for takeoff but a Cessna 172 owned by the East Tennessee Pilots Club had motorcycles and cars with lights blazing for its short hop to Island Home Airport near Knoxville on Wednesday morning. The pilot reportedly made a precautionary landing on I-640 because he was low on fuel. He got it down and off to the shoulder without incident and a friend brought a jerry can. By then they’d attracted quite a crowd, including about 10 law enforcement officers. 

The authorities blocked 2,000 feet of freeway and the freshly fueled aircraft lined up in the fast lane and accelerated under an overpass before lifting off uneventfully. It was on the ground for less than an hour.

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6 COMMENTS

  1. This just leaves me begging for more info…like how did this pilot end up low on fuel, how much risk assessment was made for the departure from the highway and is this simply the end of this event or will an FAA inspector look into it?

  2. So, everyone is ragging on the guy for getting too low on fuel, which is a case of bad judgment, that much is true, but if you made a series of bad decisions, then ended up low on fuel, how many people have run out of gas trying “to just make it a little bit further?” Electing to do a precautionary landing, when you know you’re going to raked over the coals for it is honestly a decent bit of judgment after a lot of bad judgment.

    I’d really like to know how this happened, was it unforecast headwinds, poor planning or something else? How much fuel was in his tanks when he landed on the road? Did he know? Still, at the end of the day electing to do a precautionary landing is an extremely hard choice to make, props to the guy for trying to do the right thing after a bunch of other bad decisions.