Imagine taking a beautiful calm stroll down the beach on a Saturday evening with sand between your toes and the waves gently rolling in. Ah, heaven! For me, that would be the absolute perfect way to dust off the stress of the work week. Now, picture a plane from the 1930s breaking the clear blue skyline and flying towards you. I don’t know about you, but the first thing I’d do is, open up google on my phone to check the symptoms of hallucination.
Sounds like a crazy World War I dream, doesn’t it? For the folks at Devon in England though, this is more than just a dream.
According to the Telegraph, pilot Zac Rockey and his passenger Trudi Spiller were on their way back to Branscombe after an event marking the 100th anniversary of the end of the World War I. Their ride? Oh, just a 1930’s aircraft. No biggie!
Things took a turn for the worst when the engine of the aircraft cut off as they were flying over the coast in Sidmouth, Devon.
Rockey and Spiller desperately began searching for a safe place to land the plane as it started losing altitude. Speaking of his experience, Rockey says:
“We were flying along, taking in the view, when it began to lose power. It failed, the options available to me in the cockpit didn’t work. So I had to look for somewhere to land. You look for somewhere near something or people so that if there are complications you will be able to get help more easily.”
Spotting the coastline, Spiller started waving frantically at the people on the Jacob’s Ladder beach to get out of the way. Meanwhile, having no other option, the pilot steered the plane towards it.
Rockey adds:
“You know what – I have had better runways. It was not ideal.”
LOL, you don’t say!
Ms Spiller was all praise for her pilot. She recounted her entire experience as such:
“I was sat in the front seat. As we came around the cliffs it began to slow up, then the next thing there was a total failure and the engine cut out. I turned around and called ‘Zac’ but of course, you can’t hear each other up there.
He’s looking out of the side of the plane and I started moving my arms telling people to get out of the way. I was slightly frightened. It wasn’t like my life flashed before me or anything but I was thinking ‘here we go‘. I gave a sigh of relief as we landed and got out quickly but afterwards, I have to admit I had jelly legs.
Zac is my hero. He is an amazing, fantastic pilot and I had every confidence in him, absolute faith that he would land it.”
As there was no other way to remove it from the beach, the aircraft, unfortunately, had to be dismantled.
Watch the video of the bizarre event here:
Pilot makes emergency landing on packed beach
While flying above the Devon coastline, a plane's engine cut out, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing on a packed beach.Read more: http://tgr.ph/Y54qrd
Posted by Telegraph News on Sunday, May 6, 2018
Man, that must’ve been one exciting Saturday for the beachgoers. Well, not more than Rockey and Spiller of course. So much for reliving history.