Wednesday the 22nd of April, 2026

Small plane makes emergency landing at Mesa intersection

By Alexis Cortez and Micaela Marshall

MESA, AZ (AZFamily) — A mechanical issue forced a small plane to make an emergency landing on a Mesa roadway early Tuesday morning.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a Piper PA-28 landed around 8:15 a.m. Mesa firefighters say the small plane was mid-flight when a mechanical problem occurred. The pilot was forced to land along a canal path near Gilbert Road and Main Street.

“Mayday, mayday, mayday. We are having an engine failure,” the pilot said to air traffic control.

“We’re just landing on a road, whatever we got here,” the pilot said. “Just 101, it appears you’re overflying Main Street,” replied someone in the tower.

“We got an alert on the field saying that there was a plane having engine trouble. We were preparing for a landing on the field, but that trouble turned into their motor not working at all,” Mesa firefighter Brian Davey said.

Davey said the plane glided onto the street, landing safely without damage. The two pilots inside the plane and no one on the ground was injured. Davey applauded both pilots’ response, calling it an “amazingly wonderful outcome.”

“Pretty amazing that it was able to pull this off. They were very cool and collected about it,” he said. “All pilots that go to school have to prepare for these incidents. It actually worked out very well that they were able to land on a busy street.”

“Hit nothing! The guy just cool as a cucumber. He had to have been. Look at everything he could have hit, and the wings just barely cleared,” said Tom Shoemaker, a witness. “He timed the traffic to stay right ahead of it, and there was no cars coming that way and no cars going that way, just perfectly timed.”

He said he was working outside at Robert Crist and Company RV, putting a nozzle on a hose, when he saw the unbelievable sight.

“And all of a sudden I seen an airplane go right behind the flag and then it came right back here, and it was still drifting,” said Shoemaker. “I thought I was seeing something. I had to shake my head ‘cause who imagines seeing an airplane?”

Shoemaker said he could hear the motor putzing along and the brakes skidding when he rushed to the scene with some co-workers.

“By the time we got there, they were already out of the plane, and they were pretty shooken (sic) up,” said Shoemaker.

Davey said he was in awe of how both pilots managed to land on a busy street, despite obstacles like power lines and trees.

“I was way more worked up than they were. They just did a very good job. I said, ‘I’m so glad you guys are safe and had a safe landing with no one getting injured,’” he said. “It seemed like just routine for them. That’s how well they did.”

The firefighter said the two pilots were not students; instead, they were both working on getting more flight hours.

About a week and a half ago, a similar situation unfolded in Phoenix. A small plane broke a water main when it crashed on a busy street, and no one was hurt.

“We do rigorous 100-hour inspections after every 100 hours of flight time. The aircraft has gone through, the engine is checked over, very detailed, and there’s just some things that you can’t foresee problems happening or emergencies like this,” said David Lines, owner of Venture West Aviation.

Lines said despite it happening twice in the Valley recently, emergency landings with positive outcomes are rare.

“I think for us today, everything aligned properly, and very thankful to a higher being for keeping everybody safe,” said Lines.

Lines said the student pilot and instructor did a ground lesson yesterday about off-site landings and emergency procedures, so they knew what to do and executed their training perfectly.

Cary Grant with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University said Arizona is a popular state for flight training due to year-round weather.

“This could be just an anomaly that we’re facing, but we need to look to see if this is a definite trend that was uptick,” Grant said.

Grant said pilot instructors need to take the recent cases seriously.

“Emergencies happen, and we have to be prepared for it. So that’s one of the things I teach is, you know, what am I going to do if I have an engine failure? Where am I going to put this airplane down?” Grant said.

Now, the FAA will investigate to figure out exactly what went wrong.

https://www.azfamily.com/2026/04/21/small-plane-makes-emergency-landing-mesa-intersection