Uncategorized

Plane Carrying US Soldiers Crash Lands On Ugandan Highway (Photos)

Published

10 years ago

July 18, 2014

A plane carrying American soldiers made an emergency landing on a highway outside Uganda’s capital Kampala on Friday, “miraculously” causing no injuries.
The plane was carrying eight people – six soldiers, the pilot and co-pilot. It was heading to South Sudan from Entebbe when it was forced to turn back due to bad weather and then land on a highway, after running out of fuel approximately 40 miles from the airport.
“Nobody was hurt. Definitely there must have been a bit of luck. A highway is not a place for aeroplanes, so they were lucky to find no vehicles,” said Paddy Ankunda, Uganda’s army spokesman.
It was unclear why the military personnel were heading to South Sudan – the world’s newest country in the grips of a civil war – and US Embassy staffs were not available for comment.
“The fuel that they had actually ran out at a village called Kiwawu along Kampala highway,” Freddy Enanga, Uganda’s police spokesman, told. “The pilot soft landed there in the middle of the road. There was no traffic there which enabled him to land safely. It’s a major highway – but it’s not as busy as Entebbe highway.”
“Emergency teams from Entebbe International airport were quickly dispatched to refuel the fixed-wing craft so that it could return to base,” Enanga added.
Ankunda also said that this was the second time a plane had landed on one of the roads between Kampala and Entebbe. According to him, last year, a plane flown by an American also crash-landed with no casualties.