Ken Smith had just driven onto the Interstate 80 on-ramp near Vista Boulevard in Sparks, Reno Nevada Monday morning when he looked in his rearview mirror and was surprised to see two wheels in midair.
That was Reno fire Operations Division Chief Joe Durousseau with three passengers and a stalled engine gliding his Cessna 172 under the Vista Boulevard overpass and looking for a place to land.
"The belly of the plane was right over me so I did the manly thing and screamed," said Smith, a Sparks resident and fiber optic technician at Qwest Communications in Reno.
"I thought I could outrun (the pilot) so I hit the gas," he said. "That pilot, God bless him, did all he could to avoid hitting me."
Durousseau stopped the plane near the Sparks Boulevard overpass about 10:20 a.m., without injury or serious damage.
Smith admitted he was a little shaken up at first but was able to laugh later.
"It was something else, that's for sure," he said. "It wasn't my time to go, I guess."
Source: www.rgj.com
