Asheville, NC (WOKI) Part of I-26 West in North Carolina remains closed following a plane crash Thursday night.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has confirmed that a Diamond DA-40 crashed along I-26 around 8:15 p.m. after declaring mayday due to engine failure.
“Mayday, mayday, we’ve got oil pressure failure, it looks like, and two ECU failures,” the pilot can be heard saying in a recording of the communication with air traffic control. “We’re coming in.”
In the recording, the pilot then says the engine lost all power but they were able to get it restarted to half power a couple of minutes later.
“Just to let you know guys know, we’ve got our engine restarted,” the pilot said. “We just heard a big bang, though, so we may lose it again here.”
The pilot then reported smoke coming into the cockpit. Unable to make it to the airport, the plane was forced to land on I-26 leading to the fiery crash.
Two people were on board the plane; they were sent to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
According to the FAA report, the plane was operated by Lift Training Academy and was being used for instruction. FlightAware’s tracker shows the plane traveled from Myrtle Beach to Knoxville, TN on Thursday before the crash in Asheville, North Carolina.
LIFT Academy released the following statement after the crash:
“On Thursday evening, one of our LIFT training flights made an emergency landing on a highway near Asheville, North Carolina. Our certificated flight instructor used their training and experience to land the aircraft without serious injury to themselves or any injury to persons on the ground. We are proud of the skill and composure our pilot and flight student demonstrated throughout the event and grateful to the first responders who attended to the scene to aid our pilots and secure the site. We have a team onsite assisting our pilots and the NTSB in its investigation. Per our standard procedures, we have instituted a 24-hour safety stand down for all LIFT operations.”
