No Parking: My strange afternoon

[JSPhoto]

Sitting at home waiting for the race to start on TV and I hear a strange dispatch by the county Sheriff's Dept. I call the staff photographer and tell him, he says "your closer, you can go", so I jump in the Jeep and head off towards I70. As I follow a State Trooper through a mile long backup and round a corner there it is..... an airplane parked on the interstate! Needless to say this will be the front page story in Monday mornings paper. The pilot, who was alone said the planes engine just shut off at 7000 feet and the only place he could see to land was on I70. There were many surprised motorists going Eastbound as the plane touched down but no one wrecked. It was a perfect landing, and he was nice enough to stop by the No Parking sign too :thumbsup: After a mechanic checked the plane out it was cleared to fly and the pilots business partner came and flew the plane off the interstate back to an airport. It was deffinately not something you see every day!

JS

[SmartWombat]

Definitely a strange day !

[Ballen Photo]

Good one JS, Thanks for sharing this unusual event with us. :thumbsup:
-Bruce

[megan]

I like your strange days better than mine!

[JSPhoto]

Yeah, it was definately strange. I just watched it on the late news and still thinking... did I really see that....lol.
One deputy, the first on scene was really fooled though as he had just driven the opposite direction and never saw anything and he thought it was a prank call and asked disparch to repeat the call, and when he got there he still didn't beleive what he was seeing. Another deputy commented what I was thinking when they shut the highway down for the takeoff and that was "you will never see this" as he pointed to an empty I70.

JS

[gahspidy]

Great story and I like that shot with the no parking sign in the bg. Really fortunate that it was able to land without a wreck of some kind. good that the service road was that large. Would not have been such a happy ending here in Brooklyn, N.Y. . .

[Old Timer]

Nice one John. That should get a front page picture for you. You hear about that kind of thing but you never expect to see it.

[Frog]

Seems that happens around here on occasion too but I've never seen it.
Did he get a ticket for parking there?

[JSPhoto]

Thanks everyone and yup, it will be front page, they keep calling wanting info Ummm, no parking ticket, although one officer was playing around a bit and stuck a tow ticket on it - he doesn't know yet I got a shot of that
gahspidy: thats no service road, thats the actual highway and the shoulder. When he landed he had to stay to the left as there are light poles for the rest area on the right side and he missed them all. He coasted to a stop on the right shoulder but was still blocking the right lane of I70. The left shoulder is narrower so he did the right thing pulling towards the right one.

JS

[SmartWombat]

No mean feat putting that down there dead-stick.

[mjs1973]

CNN even picked up the story.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/...e.landing.wthr

[JSPhoto]

yup, I heard that. And if they used the full clip WTHR did yesterday then you saw me in the first part of the clip taking a photo

And the paper used two of my shots on the front page and three inside and it was the maijor story of the day. Now I wonder if my photos got picked up by any other papers. The paper didn't mention whether they turned any over to the AP but the staff photog liked them, especially the one of him taking off, which they ran big on the front. :thumbsup:

JS

[Ballen Photo]

And the paper used two of my shots on the front page and three inside and it was the maijor story of the day. Now I wonder if my photos got picked up by any other papers. The paper didn't mention whether they turned any over to the AP but the staff photog liked them, especially the one of him taking off, which they ran big on the front.

CONGRATS JS! :thumbsup:
-Bruce

[brmill26]

Wow, that's crazy. Congrats on the front page and some fantastic photos JS!

[JSPhoto]

Thanks Bruce and Brad

This doesn't happen often, well actually this one never has, but the staff photog actually said my photo of the plane taking off was better than the one the Indy Star used
Then I was in a gas station and one guy commented on the photos being better than the one the Star had, and that he liked the No Parking sign in the one shot. The guy had just moved here from out of state and the cashier started laughing when he was talking about the photos as he had no clue the person who took them was standing right behind him. It was pretty funny as I kept quiet until the casher told the guy I took the photos.

JS

[Ballen Photo]

The guy had just moved here from out of state and the cashier started laughing when he was talking about the photos as he had no clue the person who took them was standing right behind him. It was pretty funny as I kept quiet until the casher told the guy I took the photos.

JS

That's too funny.
-Bruce

[JSPhoto]

Yeah it was funny. The day before in the same gas station some guy says thanks to me for all the photos I took of his kid and the cashier says "you probably can't go anywhere around here without being recognized". And it's true. I won't shop in the main town in our county because of it... it takes too long as I keep getting stopped by people. Yet even when I go to stores outside the county I run into people who know me due to my photos. But you really know you've been in this too long when during a game a ref says "so how are you John?" or an official comes up and says "nice picture of ......." from some game or play and you try to remember which one they are meaning. Or the official says "you could have gotten my good side" to which I will sometimes reply "you have one?" and then laugh.

JS

[JSPhoto]

There are more photos here: http://greenfieldreporter.com/shared...4&mediaid=1095

There are 4 of them and these are 4 of the 5 the paper ran. Not sure what happened to # 5 though

They ran the one of the plane taking off big on the front page and the one of the mechanic checking the fuel under it. The others were tun inside the back page with the rest of the article. Overall I was happy with it, as were the staff photog and editor.

JS

[SmartWombat]

yup, I heard that. And if they used the full clip WTHR did yesterday then you saw me in the first part of the clip taking a photo

Is that you then, standing in front of the plane ?

[Frog]

Yeah it was funny. The day before in the same gas station some guy says thanks to me for all the photos I took of his kid and the cashier says "you probably can't go anywhere around here without being recognized". And it's true. I won't shop in the main town in our county because of it... it takes too long as I keep getting stopped by people. Yet even when I go to stores outside the county I run into people who know me due to my photos. But you really know you've been in this too long when during a game a ref says "so how are you John?" or an official comes up and says "nice picture of ......." from some game or play and you try to remember which one they are meaning. Or the official says "you could have gotten my good side" to which I will sometimes reply "you have one?" and then laugh.

JS

Ah! The price of fame!

[squerly_q]

That is crazy!! What I :idea: is how the pilot laned an aircraft on a freeway with cars driving on it? The photo of the plane taking off is tight because you can see the huge traffic jam behind a plan taking off. Being in the AF its definetly a chuckle.

[JSPhoto]

Is that you then, standing in front of the plane ?

lol, yup, thats me Paul .... wow, I made CNN! lol. I'll have to thank that video photographer when I see him again....:thumbsup:

John

[JSPhoto]

as he flew over traffic he bobbed the plane up and down and had his wheels down. Fortunarely the traffic was paying attention and realized he had no power, they backed off and let him land. It was pretty wild
The takeoff was part of a series I shot. I actually shot the whole take off in RAW, something rare for me but I thought it may help as the sky was odd colors changing from blue to gray and it worked out well, especially for the take off shot the paper ran, the blue came out perfect and the print version looks exactly like the one I sent them. They didn't do anything to it except crop it how they wanted it, no other adjustments.

JS

That is crazy!! What I :idea: is how the pilot laned an aircraft on a freeway with cars driving on it? The photo of the plane taking off is tight because you can see the huge traffic jam behind a plan taking off. Being in the AF its definetly a chuckle.

[JSPhoto]

Yeah, and it seems this plane deal has led to even more fame, people were talking about it at tonights game 30 miles from here.

JS

Ah! The price of fame!

[opus]

I read it on cnn before I read it here.


Thirty years ago or more, my uncle had to do the same thing, only he landed on top of someone's car because they were both going the exact same speed, so he never saw them below. No one was hurt, but his front propeller went through the rear window of their station wagon.


And one more thing: I have had dreams of being in an airplane that lands on a highway, or flies under an overpass.

Thanks for sharing!