Small plane lands on I-5 with fuel problems, taxis to gas station
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BELLINGHAM, Wash. - A small plane landed on Interstate 5 Friday near Bellingham after experiencing fuel problems, then taxied up an off-ramp to a nearby gas station, according to police and witnesses.
The single-engine aircraft landed on the freeway near the Slater Road interchange at about 1:45 p.m.
The plane struck a glancing blow to the roof of a car as it came down, but otherwise landed safely, said Washington state Patrol Trooper Brandon Lee.
He says neither the 47-year-old pilot nor his 48-year-old woman passenger were injured. The occupants of the car that was hit were also unhurt.
Lee says the small plane experienced mechanical issues that cut fuel to the engines just before descending to the Bellingham airport.
The plane then taxied about two miles on the freeway before exiting and parking at an AM-PM gas station and convenience store.
A witness, Steve Garrett, said the plane was just sitting at the gas station when he pulled up.
"I was wondering how it got there," he said. "It must have been an interesting landing."
Garrett said representatives from "every law enforcement agency around" responded to the scene.
"It's a big kerfuffle. The plane seems fine," he said.
The Bellingham Herald reports that the pilot, Tony Dulley, and his girlfriend, Shelby Rush, were flying from Spokane to Bellingham.
Dulley is a plane mechanic who has been flying for more than two decades, Rush said. The couple was coming to Bellingham so he could do mechanical work on planes at the airport when a suspected carburetor issue caused engine trouble seven miles from the airport.
Rush said she was shaken up by the emergency landing and credited their safe landing to Dulley's flying experience.
The Slater Road exit ramp was closed temporarily while the plane taxied along it, but has since reopened, said state transportation officials.
The single-engine aircraft landed on the freeway near the Slater Road interchange at about 1:45 p.m.
The plane struck a glancing blow to the roof of a car as it came down, but otherwise landed safely, said Washington state Patrol Trooper Brandon Lee.
He says neither the 47-year-old pilot nor his 48-year-old woman passenger were injured. The occupants of the car that was hit were also unhurt.
Lee says the small plane experienced mechanical issues that cut fuel to the engines just before descending to the Bellingham airport.
The plane then taxied about two miles on the freeway before exiting and parking at an AM-PM gas station and convenience store.
A witness, Steve Garrett, said the plane was just sitting at the gas station when he pulled up.
"I was wondering how it got there," he said. "It must have been an interesting landing."
Garrett said representatives from "every law enforcement agency around" responded to the scene.
"It's a big kerfuffle. The plane seems fine," he said.
The Bellingham Herald reports that the pilot, Tony Dulley, and his girlfriend, Shelby Rush, were flying from Spokane to Bellingham.
Dulley is a plane mechanic who has been flying for more than two decades, Rush said. The couple was coming to Bellingham so he could do mechanical work on planes at the airport when a suspected carburetor issue caused engine trouble seven miles from the airport.
Rush said she was shaken up by the emergency landing and credited their safe landing to Dulley's flying experience.
The Slater Road exit ramp was closed temporarily while the plane taxied along it, but has since reopened, said state transportation officials.
 Fox13 had the pilot on live. He said he'd ran out of fuel and pulled into the ARCO and gassed up. Then the police escorted him on a surface road as he drove the airplane to the local airport about 3 miles away. The FAA will certainly investigate the case. But rarely do I see the FAA dish out any kind of meaningful fines or confiscate pilot licenses.
 @Blindman Airplanes use aviation fuel - "av-gas".  The octane is much higher than what can be found at the pump. #FAIL.
@Blindman. bwahahahaâ¦. Do you just enjoy posting lies or are you really that addle brained and/or ill-informed? I.e. from theQ13 web site. âThe pilot, Tony Dulley, 47, of Nine Mine Falls, Wash., said he believes ice on his carburetor caused the engine to seize up as his plane was descending. He and his girlfriend were the only two people in the plane. Dulley said: I "cleared underneath one cloud, saw the airport and then saw that I wasn't going to make it (the airport) so I pretty much committed to the freeway at that time.â And you rarely âsee the FAA dish out any kind of meaningful fines or confiscate pilot licensesâ because you are obviously not paying attention to much of anything.
He ran out of gas. He's an idiot. And he should be charged with reckless endangerment for landing on a freeway. He should have been a man and landed or crashed somewhere he wouldn't have endangered the public. He just got lucky people on the freeway were paying attention and he only hit one car. The FAA should confiscate his pilots license.
 @Blindman He landed in the safest place around, idiot. The alternatives were to crash into occupied residences or try to land on a busy retail parking lot on an occupied school playground.
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Very appropriate moniker, however: suits you to a tee!
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(BTW, pilots are TAUGHT to use highways for emergency landings if safer alternatives like empty farm fields cannot be attained.)
@Blindman. Boy you just donât give up do you? Even about something that you obviously have no (and even less than no) knowledge But the FAA and NTSB will obviously review the incident to see what really happened, as opposed to you who seem to be just shooting from the hip on a lot of this, and determine what needs to be done regarding the pilot and/or the aircraft/operations in particular and/or even in general.
At least it wasn't like this incident :-)
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http://youtu.be/FqIeM3blPck
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What is a kerfuffle? I guess I'll rue the day I asked what a kerfuffle was....
 @Thyroid Kind of like a fracus but less violent.
 @JLS1950  @Thyroid or maybe a calm melee...
 @Thyroid A brouhaha. Duh...
Whether or not this was actually pilot error, I'm pretty sure that as a working aviation professional that came out of military aviation, he's kicking his own asz a lot harder than any on here can come up with.
Wow, I would be shook up too.......great job Tony. Did he filler up? Glad no one was hurt during this foray.
 @mustang sally aviation fuel does not come from your local gas station.
What a big heard of cops. Maybe they were thinking the plane was full of drugs.
What a commendable save!
I've known the pilot for over 40 years. We've been through much together. He has been through worse scrapes in the air than this with the military flying helo's. He was flying second seat on one mission where the pilot flew through some high tension power lines crossing a narrow canyon that were not on their map. They had half a dozen crew members on-board. They were going down fast. The pilot froze. He took the controls, did a quick analysis of aircraft systems, and landed the helo safely while losing power. Nobody injured. All walked away.
The military base wrote an article on it praising him for his quick, calm actions in light of what should have been a life ending event.
Nerves of steel / cool / calm / collected. He is someone you want at the controls when things go bad. An unheard of Sullenberger.
Those that want to armchair criticism without having the facts, it just proves your intelligence level and proves that you have a "glass is half empty" mentality.
I know how well he maintains his airplane. I know how attentive he is to detail during his pre-flight checks. I know how he reacts to emergencies. I will go flying with the pilot anytime anywhere in any airplane.
I proudly fly the flag he sent me from Iraq during one of his deployments there. He is our nations finest.
Go ahead, take your uninformed cheap shots. His kind just ignore your kind. Nobody else is listening except the other small minded people with the same intellectual capacity.
 @Lake Stevens Thank you for sharing the background of this gentleman...sadly too many of us have become cheap shot pros...I am so glad that everyone walked away unhurt.
 @Lake Stevens What is wrong with people, there's a crap load of moving parts in an engine, unless you take a fine tooth comb, or xray machine to every part every time you fly, which is piratically impossible things are going to happen, or not happen. No one was hurt, everyone involved came out, to me that's good flying.Â
@Lake Stevens Not sure there is a need for your bitterness, but think he did a great job and I thank every vet for their service to our country.
According the an interview on 13 he ran out of fuel. Fueled back up at the ARCO and then drove the 2 miles on a side road to get up to the airport. Doesn't sound like much of a pilot to me when he can't even read a gas gauge. @Lake Stevens
 @Blindman  @Lake Stevens blindman... strongly recommend you upgrade that version of Flight Simulator you got with your commodore 64...
 @Blindman  @Lake Stevens Do you have any idea at all what it takes to fly? Guess what you can't predict exactly how much fuel you'll be using flying, because of one simple fact, if you start getting a head wind you're going to start using more fuel.
 @Blindman An outstanding mechanic whether its a plane or car will hear the change in the engine during an issue and instantly know the problem without the need for a gauge. Its call intuition and experience. If you rely on gauges solely, you are very lazy about the maintenance of whatever transportation vehicle youre using.
@Blindman. You keep talking about fuel gauges as if they are so accurate and reliable and just all of that in these light aircraft. All that shows is how little to nothing you know about any of it. But I guess after it is all actually said and done then you are still a blindman after all.
@Lake Stevens Thanks for posing some common sense from someone withe some experience!
 @Lake Stevens He also has President Eisenhower to thank for the design of the interstate highway system that is supposed to have periodic straight stretches that CAN be used as landing strips.Â
Yep just watched an interview of the pilot on tv. He ran out of gas. Filled up at the ARCO station and drove the plane to the airport on the ground.
Another example of someone who probably can't even drive a car but  he gets to fly a plane because he's got a few more bucks than you and I. The FAA should pull his pilots license until he can show that he understands what a fuel gauge is.
 @Blindman thank god there's no women in your life...
 @tufa23  @Blindman Just his mother....who lives upstairs.Â
Bravo Zulu to Tony. You can now have a fantastic Labor Day weekend fixing more planes (after a few rounds at the nearest pub and a change of underwear)!
You can't make this sh** up.... That's all I'm saying
gas station didn't do any good for fuel just parking as the airplane cant use auto fuel but aviation fuel to fly.
@32jim2. So how were you able to figure out that this particular aircraft was not STCâd for auto gas?
@32jim2 We know that; just a light side comment from most.
Now that is definitely a smart and experienced pilot. Landed safely on the freeway, was able to taxi it to the gas station. Nice save! :)
If he ran out of fuel his pilots license should be confiscated. And to put other people at risk by landing on freeway just shows more bad decision making skills. He should have just landed in a field or the trees or any where else that didn't put the public at risk.
 @Blindman Must be nice to be soooooooo perfect in everything you do.  I can honestly say that in over 50 years of driving a car that I have had mechanical problems which were unforeseen prior to getting behind the wheel and out on the road...I have never flown a plane but can't help but feel that they too are subject to mechanical problems that can happen, regardless of well maintained the planes are.  Time to back off of this man, he did a phenomenal of landing the plan without harm to anyone.
 @Circe @Blindman Yeah I've had the same problem with the boat, multiple times. Mechanical problems,e ct. Just happened just last weekend. Apparently something was plugged, probably bad gas. So yes, these types of problems do happen!
 @Blindman Umm the freeway was built the way it is just for such emergencies.Â
@Blindman Come on and read the story again Mister.......says he had a mechanical problem which caused the fuel problem. You need to get a life and stop being mean!
Engines can fail for many reasons, and with planes it really is very rare, but it can happen. We train pilots to deal with it. If there is no field or too far from an airport, a road or freeway is an excellent choice. We generally land at freeway speeds, so if traffic isn't too heavy, I teach my students to go for a "vertical merge" on the freeway between traffic. Have I done this? No. But its been done safely many times. So why don't you point fingers at me also since I even dare suggest that pilots "put the public at risk" and train them to do this?! Comments like yours, other misinformed comments and speculation on this list, and of course the news media only encourage the misunderstanding of aviation. I suggest you visit a flight school sometime and take a demo flight lesson and learn something before posting crap. -- a flight instructor
@Tom-RNT. Hold it! You arenât really going to try to teach a blindman to fly are you? Whoa. Wait a minute.
Ha! Â No, I didn't volunteer to take him up, just a lesson in general. Â I've flown with that type before, they never finish training, waste a lot of time and money. Â The know everything about flying anyway from all the expert comments posted here!
 @flyskiwindsurf LOL! No kidding! Good one! :)
I lived between the Slater Rd and the airport along (Old 99) now the Frontage Rd for 17 years, there is no field in that area that he could have landed in just trees.
@Blindman you should quit talking about things you have no idea about.(dumb azz)
 @Blindman I believe the story says that he was having fuel problems that cut the engine. That doesn't necesarily means that he didn't fuel up. I take it you're not a pilot and have never flown a plane before. A good straight stretch of freeway is one of the best places to land. A field, trees? Really? His experience is what kept everyone safe. Sounds like you're living up to your name.
So glad that they were able to land safely and that no one was hurt. Nice to have a happy ending instead of another tragedy.
At least no one was hurt! Kudos to the pilot for navigating the plane safely and it looks like they had some help from the police so that there was no injury to motorists.Â