Incredible viral video shows plane crash landing on city street – BGR

• A light aircraft sustained an engine failure while overflying a city in Brazil, and the pilot made an emergency landing on a city street.
• Viral video shows the plane crashing and rolling onto its roof with its wings torn off.
• Incredibly, the pilot and his passenger were able to walk away from the crash with moderate injuries.

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Airplanes are one of the safest forms of transportation, but like any machine, they sometimes encounter mechanical problems that cause them to land earlier than they would like. Unfortunately for Fábio Reis, a pilot flying over Guabiruba, Brazil, last month, the engine of the light aircraft he was piloting decided to shut down at the worst possible time.

With no runway in sight, Reis did what he could to line up a decent landing on a residential street. Things did not go as planned and during the descent, the wings of his plane got tangled in the roadside power lines. The plane was completely destroyed, but Reis and his passenger escaped alive.

As you can see in the video of the incident, the impromptu landing zone was anything but ideal. It was a narrow residential road with cars and pedestrians, but Reis deserves serious credit for managing to get down between moving vehicles and away from pedestrians walking along the sidewalk.

Being a light aircraft, it is not designed to withstand a lot of abuse, and the aircraft disintegrated quickly once it hit the sidewalk. He rolled onto his roof with his wings torn off, and he slid along the ground until a stop sign stopped him in his tracks.

Judging from the video itself, it’s hard to imagine anyone surviving the crash, but they did, which is miraculous. The pilot reportedly suffered bumps and bruises as well as what was suspected to be broken ribs and internal bleeding. The passenger had a broken jaw (ouch!) And scratches, but after treatment at a local hospital, they are both declared “stable”.

According to several reports, the two men were on the plane for a test flight. The passenger, who is said to be a qualified pilot himself, was considering purchasing the aircraft and wishing to take a trip there before making his final decision. Obviously, the plane won’t change hands, and it is unlikely to return to the sky after being torn to pieces.

The good news, of course, is that the passengers survived this terrible ordeal. When small planes run into trouble, nothing is certain. Larger planes have the advantage of being able to fly even after one of the multiple engines has failed and can usually find an emergency landing zone assuming they are traveling over land. Light planes don’t have the same safety nets, so it’s great to see these two guys pull away just once.