By Donald Wittkowski
It was a near-perfect landing on a makeshift runway – the beach.
When it was all over Saturday morning, the pilot walked away unharmed and the plane was relatively unscathed, except for the tip of the left wing and a propeller blade that was bent from striking the sand on the 49th Street beach.
“The guy made a pretty amazing, safe landing,” said Sgt. Patrick Randles, Ocean City Police Department’s public information officer. “He picked the best place because 49th Street has the widest beach.”
At approximately 8:35 a.m., the pilot of a small single-engine Cessna made the emergency landing. He was uninjured and the only occupant of the plane, Randles said.
Nearly two hours later, police and the pilot, who declined to comment while inspecting his plane, were still waiting for the Federal Aviation Administration to arrive at the site. The plane was later removed from the beach and taken to Ocean City Municipal Airport, Randles said.
Police did not release the pilot’s name or any information about where he took off from or his destination due to the ongoing investigation that would be handled by the FAA.
Beachgoers and others who learned of the unusual sight on the beach gathered to watch.
One beachgoer who videoed the emergency landing said the pilot told her he experienced engine failure.
“I spoke to him when the pilot was getting out of his aircraft and he was fine. I believe the engine did cut out,” said Joan Samonisky, of Newark, Del.
Samonisky, who is visiting Ocean City for a weekend trip, was walking off the beach at around 8:30 a.m. when she noticed that a plane was flying unusually low.
“He was three or four blocks away and was low and I thought to myself, ‘This is going to be interesting,’” she said.
Samonisky took out her cellphone and videoed the plane. The video shows the pilot making what appeared to be a smooth landing on a nearly empty stretch of beach before the plane got bogged down in the sand and almost tipped over nose first.
Ocean City resident Pat MacAnally, who lives at 45th Street, said this was not the first time that a plane had made an emergency landing on the beach in the same area. She recalled a similar incident about 20 years ago.
“This is not the first time I ever saw this,” she said. “It was right here before.”
