Plane makes emergency crash landing on north Cape Coral street. FAA investigating

A small plane made an emergency landing on a Cape Coral residential road at about 10 a.m. Saturday, according to authorities.

The Cape Coral Fire Department initially reported minor injuries to the one person on board after the incident on Vogiantzis Parkway, near Andalusia Boulevard, but later updated, saying the pilot, whom the department described as "experienced" in aviation, was not injured.

"The roadway will be closed for a prolonged time," the department said in a statement. "Vogiantzis Parkway will be closed until further notice from N.E. 38th Terrace to N.E. 10th Avenue."

This comes just over two weeks after a Bombardier Challenger 600 jet crashed on southbound Interstate 75 near Pine Ridge Road in Naples, killing two.

Here's what we know.

Where did the flight depart from prior to emergency landing?

In Saturday morning's mishap, the single-engine aircraft had flown out of Pine Shadows Airport in North Fort Myers, according to the fire department.

The pilot reported a possible engine failure, said the FAA, which is investigating what happened.

How far had plane traveled before Cape Coral emergency?

Aviation records show the 1998 Bellanca 17-30A had departed at 9:56 a.m. from Pine Shadows adjacent to where the airplane owner lives, before the crash landing within about five minutes at Vogiantzis and Gator Circle.

A long-time Lee County resident, William Howard, 67, purchased his home in the Pine Shadows Air Park community in 1993 and had registered the craft with the FAA exactly a year ago, Feb. 24, 2023, according to Lee County public records and information, courtesy of FlightAware (flightaware.com). The latter indicates no other usage of the four-seater in at least the past three months.

Lee County Port Authority, Lee County Emergency Medical Services and Cape Coral Police were among the entities that assisted the fire department at the crash landing scene Saturday.

With an array of single-family homes nearby, crews surrounded the aircraft with special foam as a precaution, but no blaze was seen or reported, according to Cape fire.

Besides houses, many on canals, the area is peppered with open lots and a few construction sites nearby.

How was North Fort Myers aircraft able to make the landing?

Neighbors shared what they saw on social media.

"He missed my house. I’m on that canal he went over. He did a heck of a job," said resident Tammy Marie. "No homes hit and he pretty much was able to belly land the plane. (Could) have been so much worse."

Where did the airplane end up after making the SWFL landing?

Neighbor Cynthia Ellen agreed with that assessment.

"I swear it was going to hit my house," she said. "He was coming down fast. I’m glad he is OK."

The plane was sitting in an eastbound lane, which also happens to be on a bridge over a canal. For some motorists, it meant a detour of a couple of miles to get around where they were headed.

"He missed a canal behind and in front of that property," said resident Robin Fernandez. "This is four streets from my house."

What businesses had been operated by the NFM plane owner?

Cape Coral resident Heather Alexander described it as a "phenomenal job.

"It was just a rough landing. But the pilot did amazing. No one died, no homes hit, no cars damaged."

Howard, the plane owner, has managed or owned past various flight-related organizations including Sailplane Tow Service and Howard Flight Operations, which was based in his Pine Shadows neighborhood, according to state records.

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What is the Pine Shadows Air Park in Southwest Florida?

At Pine Shadows, every resident has a hangar behind their home, and planes taxi through the streets to a private runaway.

What crashes and other incidents have involved Pine Shadows?

Other incidents have occurred tied to the strip that dates back more than four decades, according to News-Press archives including:

∎ an original developer of the subdivision and a passenger dying when their plane took a nose dive after takeoff there in 1988;

∎ a Cessna that had just taken off in 1991, crashing into a vacant house and damaging three others while injuring five who had been on the aircraft;

∎ a pilot getting ready to land there in 1993 ran out of fuel and crashed in a field but was not injured;

∎ the 1997 death of a pilot who crashed after taking off, having engine trouble and trying to return to the runway;

∎ a plane trying to land there in 2003 instead hit a house, killing one and hospitalizing two, but no one on the ground was hurt; and

∎ a 2015 crash of a small plane arriving from Key West that didn't cause injuries.

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How long was Pine Shadows used for cocaine smuggling?

For five years ending in 1992, a convicted couple who lived there had used the airpark to smuggle nearly 9,000 pounds of cocaine into North Fort Myers.

And in 1986, a pilot who had taken off from there, died when he crashed his twin-engine Piper Apache into a Pan-Am jet at Tampa International Airport.

The News-Press and Naples Daily News journalist Ricardo Rolón contributed to this story. Based at the Naples Daily News, Columnist Phil Fernandez (pfernandez@gannett.com) grew up in Southwest Florida and writes In the Know for the network.

This article originally appeared on Naples Daily News: Emergency plane landing on Cape Coral residential road. FAA called