(Photo credit: Minnesota State Police) – Well these are some of the most incredible photos we have ever seen and while they were posted by the Minnesota State Police on April Fool’s Day we really don’t have any indication that things are askew with them at all. What you are seeing, as reported by the Minnesota State Police is the aftermath of an airplane and a car getting together on a public road. If the police account is true, the airplane essentially side swiped the car and the prop chopped into it like a bologna slicer, opening up gashes right through the quarter panel. Had it continued up, it would have chopped the driver to bits but it seems as though the car did a good job of stopping the small airplane.
Rather than rehash what they have already said, here’s the public statement released by the Minnesota State Police. If this was an April Fool’s gag, congrats MSP, you got us good. If it wasn’t, the driver of this car will probably be having nightmares for the rest of their natural born days about a small airplane trying to make mincemeat out of them!
Here’s the MSP statement:
A motorist on a northern Minnesota highway had a close call this morning — but it wasn’t with another vehicle.
The woman’s car was sideswiped by the propeller of a small plane forced to make an emergency landing when the engine failed shortly after taking off from the nearby Hawley Municipal Airport. The plane was headed for Minot, N.D., but had only climbed about 1,000 feet into the air when the pilot was forced to land on Highway 10 just south of the airport and east of the city of Hawley.
The plane made a successful emergency landing and eventually caught up to her vehicle. The motorist said she noticed the plane in her mirror but was unable to move out of the way before the propeller shredded part of her car.
Nobody was injured and the plane was moved off the road. The NTSB and FAA are investigating.
There’s some strange conspiracy theories going around the internet about this.
Apparently the US military conducted some weird experiments on soldiers aimed at increasing their testosterone levels making them fearless in battle, They also practiced strange brain manipulation techniques to enhance this.
Unfortunately this research took place near a car park..
Look out for the Minnesota car-raper – a giant gasolene and sex crazed GI with long claws and an insatiable lust for exhaust pipes!
Judging my the bent tips on the plane’s prop and the filleted quarter-panel, I’m going to say yes
When engines fail… they stop running.
Its 4/2, Didn’t the jokes end yesterday? Total BS, and I don’t mean bangshifty!
Mythbusters did a segment once on a plane chopping up another plane. The damage looked just like that. So I’m going to believe the report.
I can vouch for the Mythbusters one – the (2) planes were owned by the uni I work for – it made the local news here and I saw the planes afterward
Looks legit to me. Ive seen a few planes that have run into others and they do that kind of damage. Where it hit the C pillar is probably when the prop tips got bent and deflected the plane away from the car. Even with an engine failure the prop continues to turn, driven by the air rather than driving the air, but it was probably under power, just not enough power to stay at altitude.
The prop moves from air flow over it even with a dead engine. Unless the blades are turned “feathered” so they do not rotate. Just spinning from air speed the prop takes a good amount of force to dead stop. Hence the damage to the car. The bent tip would go with the damage to the drivers door. That would be where the prop stopped turning.
I have bought and scrapped a car hit by a small plane doing an emergency landing.
Just talked to my buddy who lives in Hawley Minnesota and it’s 100% true. He saw the car in the ditch on his way to work. He said if the plane hadn’t hit the car, it would have coasted right down the highway back to the airport.