This was a US registered airplane north of Prince George. Likely coming south out of Alaska down the Rocky Mountain Trench.

Every owner of an airplane with big tires on it is a member here, right? So this must be one of ours?

http://www.ckpg.com/2017/10/18/emergenc ... ighway-97/

Don't know about the pilot, but he must have been pretty familiar with the country to call 911 and ask for a section of the road to be closed so he could land.

Flying through snow makes me want to barf...it's like instant leans every time I look out the window.

Me too. I want to be high enough to use instruments or low enough to land quickly, if not able to get out quickly.

Good on him for dealing with what could have been a very ugly situation in a very professional manner, with no injury or damage to anyone or anything.

MTV

mtv wrote:Good on him for dealing with what could have been a very ugly situation in a very professional manner, with no injury or damage to anyone or anything.

MTV

+1

Works on floats too. One Fall I step taxied over 5 miles on the Tanana River into Fairbanks in a snowstorm. Had to stop to let the tour riverboat Discovery pass at the mouth of the Chena River. Found a bar (gravel bar not booze) to wait on, and when vis went over a mile scooted over to International float pond on a Special VFR. Cub was covered with snow but I carry a bucket that time of year to throw water on the plane to melt it.

Gary

Bear Lake is on the Pine Pass route following the Alaska HWY. Things change really quick on that route this time of year, good pilot call on parking for a bit. My understanding from some guys working right there was the police showed up after the plane was parked and they would not block traffic for his take off. The good part is they left before dark.

I have never called for blockage getting down on a precautionary, but I have received LEO blockage getting off several times.

That is pretty normal for these parts as well, normally.

Before I had earned my private license, we were up on the Anchorage--Fairbanks highway somewhere south of Cantwell, in a wide spot having lunch in the motorhome, when a Cub with a nice young couple landed on the road. The weather was drizzly, and the ceilings were pretty low. We invited them to wait out the weather with us. When the rain stopped, they took off again, only to return a few minutes later--apparently once above the trees, it didn't look all that good toward Anchorage.

After some discussion, the young man decided to wait it out with the airplane and asked if his girlfriend could ride with us back to Anchorage. He planned to fly on in when the weather lifted. We were glad to oblige.

The reasons I remember this, now some 45 years later, are a bit unique. First (of course), our guest was a looker--very pretty blond. But for reasons I can't remember, Wife 1 insisted that she should drive and I should sit in the back with our guest and the kids. That would have been fine, except that she (Wife 1) started driving too fast for the gravel road. Pretty soon I heard an unusual sound and told her to pull over. One of the duals on the right side was flat, which was a pain in the wazoo to change on that rig. I discovered a long, slender rock with a sharp pointy end about the size of a middle finger, had penetrated the tire. I still have that rock!

Although I've never had to land on a highway, I have always felt that doing that would be a whole lot better than continuing on when the weather gets in the way. One of my first airplane partners had done that before we met, landing a 172 on I-80 northwest of Laramie when a sudden snow squall enveloped Laramie. As anyone who's driven that highway knows, it may be a major east-west highway, but it's not very busy. As he described it, he just landed between vehicles and taxied into what was then a Stuckey's rest stop. After the weather cleared, he taxied back out and took off for Laramie, which was only about 10 minutes away.

Cary

I landed my Pawnee on a frontage road in Kansas near a gas station. I shut the engine down just outside their lot and pushed to the pump. When I paid, the guy asked why I hadn't taxied up to the pump like all the other crop dusters.

Some corrections required. Bear Lake is along the Hart Highway between Price George and Dawson Creek. It is also the point if you are going north where you decide to go through the trench or take the Pine Pass route and follow the highway through to Dawson Creek.