‘I Was Screaming In Joy’: Teen Pilot Recalls Emergency Landing On Ocean City Bridge Just 10 Weeks After Earning License

By Matt Petrillo

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    OCEAN CITY, New Jersey (KYW) — We’re hearing from the teenage pilot who made an emergency landing on a bridge in Ocean City Monday while flying a small banner plane.

“I’d like to think it’s luck but also I think I did it with skill,” Landon Lucas said.

It’s Lucas’ skill that got himself and the small banner plane safely on the ground after the plane had engine failure mid-flight.

“Once your propeller actually comes to a complete stop, and you’re just sitting there like, ‘holy crap, I can’t screw this up,’” he said.

But the quick-thinking 18-year-old pilot made an emergency landing on the 9th Street Bridge between Somers Point and Ocean City Monday afternoon.

“Flying a plane is easy. But then once you start flying a plane that doesn’t work, that’s when it gets difficult,” Lucas said.

He had just five minutes to react.

“I do not have a radio in this aircraft so no one knows what’s going on at this point,” he recalls.

Speaking Tuesday outside of Cape May Aerial Advertising near Cape May Courthouse, Lucas says he released his banner into the ocean and then spotted a gap in traffic on the bridge, where he was able to safely land.

“I was screaming in joy, it was surreal. I made it. The airplane’s in one piece, I’m in one piece, not a scratch,” he said.

Lucas is a fresh-faced pilot, earning his license to fly about 10 weeks ago.

“My associate’s degree was in aviation,” Lucas said.

He now hopes this will be the last emergency landing he has to make.

“Yeah, let’s hope this is the last time I land on a bridge,” Lucas said.

Lucas says the FAA was out investigating Tuesday to determine what led up to the incident and determined it was a no-fault emergency landing.

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