By admin 
SUPERIOR, AZ (AZFamily) — A small plane made an emergency landing on U.S. 60 near the Superior Municipal Airport Sunday afternoon, marking the third time in less than a month a plane malfunction has forced a landing on an Arizona road.
Read more State, federal lawmakers push for gas tax suspension amid record-high prices
The plane’s owner said the pilot, the sole occupant with several years of experience, took off from Superior Municipal Airport just before 1:30 p.m. Sunday when the plane stalled on takeoff. The pilot safely landed the aircraft on the eastbound side of the highway.
No common thread found
An investigation found no single thread connecting the three incidents. They occurred in different areas, with different types of small planes and pilots with varying levels of experience.
The incident comes less than a month after a small plane made an emergency landing on 7th Street just north of Camelback. About a week after that, another small plane came down near Gilbert and Main Street.
“Just as I reached for the radio, everything let loose,” the pilot of the 7th Street incident said, explaining how quickly the situation changed. “We were losing power, and we were starting down.”
In the Gilbert incident, the pilot informed air traffic control of an engine failure before landing on Gilbert near Main Street in Mesa.
“Hit nothing. The guy was just cool as a cucumber. He had to have been, look at everything he could have hit. And the wings just barely cleared,” witness Tom Shoemaker said.
Expert weighs in
Cary Grant, a longtime pilot and flight instructor at Embry-Riddle, said the successful landings demonstrate proper training.
Read more Arizona hoping to fill doctor shortage by 2030
“The fact that the airplanes have been put down on streets and for the most part successfully, that tells me that pilots are doing a good job of being trained and executing what they’re trained for,” Grant said.
He said investigators will examine whether maintenance deficiencies played a role.
“If there was any trend we’d look at, of course, they’re all different airplanes, all different scenarios, so does it go back to maintenance, are we seeing a deficiency in the maintenance of the airplanes, these are certainly things that the NTSB, when they go through their investigation process, along with the FAA, they will try to determine,” Grant said.
It could take a full year for the investigation results to come back.
Grant said the Valley and surrounding areas have many smaller airports, and this is a busy time of year for them. He said he expects the trend to slow down going into summer.
See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.
Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.
Do you have a story you want us to investigate? Tell us about it by contacting us.
Read more New research warns immigration crackdown is hurting Arizona’s workforce