Private plane emergency lands on snowy Virginia highway
Loudoun County officials are on the scene where a plane landed on the Loudoun County Parkway in Virginia.
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00:00 Once again, just to recap, we know that that plane made an emergency landing right there in the Loudoun County Parkway.
00:05 What can you tell us thus far?
00:07 Yeah, so as you've been recapping, there's very limited information on what we know exactly happened here.
00:13 We do know that the Virginia State Police responded just before 1 o'clock according to their press release that they just sent.
00:19 They said that this was a call about a small private aircraft making an emergency landing.
00:24 You can see that aircraft that's right behind us.
00:26 I'm gonna step out of the way so you guys can get a better look at it.
00:29 So it's been about an hour or so since all this unfolded.
00:34 The scene itself, of course, is still very active.
00:37 You can see a lot of different law enforcement and first responders, emergency officials on here.
00:42 Now I can tell you that from what we last heard, there are no injuries that have been reported.
00:48 Again, state police are still here on the scene.
00:51 There is no telling though how long they will be here for.
00:55 That is something that we're hoping to kind of figure out as the afternoon goes on, as the nature of this goes.
01:01 Just kind of unclear of how long they'll be out here, what exactly is their protocol.
01:07 I'm assuming they're gonna have to clear this, of course, at some point.
01:09 But yeah, right now we're still just trying to gather information on here as well.
01:14 We know the FAA will be investigating too.
01:16 I want you to take, so what I'm looking at is there's happens to be a gentleman in beige pants.
01:21 It looks like a young man.
01:22 I see the EMS standing next to him as well.
01:26 I saw earlier that he left from an ambulance.
01:29 Does he happen to be, do you know, one of the passengers that was on the plane when it actually made that emergency landing?
01:34 We haven't heard any specifics on that, so I don't want to speak too soon.
01:41 We're still waiting to hear information on that.
01:43 You guys are watching this unfold in real time just as we are.
01:46 So again, some of this information that's coming out right now is all very preliminary information.
01:51 I can tell you, I will say outside of this scene right here, this is a pretty busy area.
01:57 There's, I don't, I, of course, I know you guys can't see this, but it's by a gas station.
02:01 There's a few restaurants here.
02:02 So there's a lot of witnesses who are also here right now.
02:04 We're hoping that shortly here we can maybe talk to somebody that was here when, when this happened to see what they saw.
02:12 But yes, we will be gathering all that information hopefully in the coming hours.
02:16 Yeah, I've been saying this since we've had a live video of this.
02:19 If you take a look at the plane, and correct me if I'm wrong, but it appears as a portion of that propeller happens to be bent.
02:25 I mean, I would only assume, and once again, this is just speculation, that perhaps that occurred upon landing.
02:30 It looks as if it hit the ground and/or the guardrail.
02:33 Do you see any damage in that area to the plane?
02:35 To the plane, it's kind of hard from our vantage point.
02:41 I will tell you that the FAA just did release a statement a few minutes ago basically saying that, again,
02:45 as you can see, this is a single engine plane that made a hard landing here at Route 606.
02:51 We do know, this is according to the FAA, that this plane departed Dulles International in Virginia around 12.15 local time.
03:00 According to the FAA, seven people were on board this plane.
03:03 But again, we're not hearing of any injuries.
03:05 All this information is just coming from the FAA a few minutes ago.
03:09 But again, they're going to continue investigating.
03:12 And they are going to be posting their preliminary accident/incident reports online,
03:17 though we're not sure entirely when that would be.
03:21 Yeah. So very quickly, I mean, obviously you are standing right there in front of the crash, you being a part of the media.
03:27 We were watching as you made your way to that scene.
03:29 For folks that are traveling in that area, dear God, they're already dealing with snow and ice.
03:34 Talk about your experience to get to that portion of where you're at and what you would recommend other folks to do.
03:41 Yeah. So if you are traveling this way, just bear in mind you're going to see a lot of law enforcement.
03:46 You can probably see it from our vantage points here.
03:48 All of these flashing lights is really hard to miss out here.
03:51 When we were driving here, I will tell you, we were kind of urged to basically make a left, maybe go around the scene if you can.
03:59 This entire road is not necessarily shut down.
04:01 I would say probably a few yards from where this plane is at part is shut down and kind of being taken over by law enforcement right now.
04:08 So they are basically urging people to go around this area if you have to pass here from what it looks like.
04:13 Yeah. We've been speaking right here on Fox Live live throughout the day with a D dot M dot.
04:18 And in this case, being in Virginia, it would be V dot.
04:21 For the most part, they said the roads have been treated and are clear.
04:25 Would you attribute that to the reason that the plane was able to make an emergency landing?
04:29 Because it looks like it could have been a lot worse than what it is.
04:34 It's hard to tell. You know, I spoke with VDOT a little bit earlier when we were originally assigned to cover weather.
04:40 But from like you mentioned, VDOT has been working to treat these roads.
04:44 They've been just really monitoring these roads and making sure that these roads are safe as they can from what we can tell from the spokesperson.
04:51 So as you mentioned, they have been treating these roads when we were driving around.
04:55 I will tell you, the roads were wet, no doubt.
04:57 Didn't see a ton of slick spots when we were out.
05:00 But as you mentioned, VDOT has said that they are continuing to monitor these roads.
05:06 The spokesperson did also tell us in a past interview a few minutes ago that all of their crews right now are on 12 hour shifts.
05:13 So they are really just working around the clock here.
05:15 But as far as to your earlier question about whether or not we contribute that, you know, I'm really not really the best expert for that, I suppose.
05:21 But definitely something that we should probably follow up with VDOT about.
05:24 Yeah. Stand by for me just one second, Lili.
05:26 I know it's cold and I appreciate you staying with us.
05:29 We're just two minutes past the top of the hour.
05:32 And I want to recap for folks that are joining us right here on Fox 5 Live, which, by the way, you're watching this unfold as we watch it unfold.
05:39 Probably the only folks in town that can do this live.
05:41 So, Lili, we thank you for that.