Engine Failure Leads To Off-Field Landing

Credit pilot Doug Jenkins with some fancy flying. The 60-year-old pilot and Vietnam vet put down his two-seat aircraft in the parking lot of Edison Mall in For Myers, FL Tuesday afternoon.

Jenkins, along with neighbor Scott Bachelor, were returning to land at Page Field in Fort Myers after a brief flight when the vintage 1943 Taylorcraft L-2's engine started to sputter... leaving Jenkins with precious few options to affect a safe landing.

"I was just trying to stay alive," Jenkins told the Naples Daily News. "There’s not many places to put down in an area like this. I was trying to get into a parking lot rather than a building."

What he came up with was the parking lot. The plane (file photo of type, below) flew between a Firestone tire store and a Mexican restaurant... where Scott Schultz was working on the roof.

"I got a little spooked, especially when we heard that first sputter and turned around and saw we were eyeball to eyeball with the wing tips," Schultz said. "He was going down and heading towards that open lot. He never even made it that far."

Falling short of the open lot, Jenkins set the plane down in a more crowded area... impacting two parked vehicles in the process, at what Jenkins estimated to be about 40 miles-per-hour. The collision crushed the back of an SUV, and blew out windows and ruptured the fuel tank of a minivan.

Jenkins was able to free himself from his harness, and help Bachelor escape. Firefighters responded before the avgas in the plane's tanks was able to mix with the gasoline from the minivan, and possibly catch fire.

"When you can walk away from something like that, then God is on your side and you’re a very lucky person," Jenkins said.

FMI: www.faa.gov