Plane With Soldiers Made Emergency Landing On Ugandan Highway

A plane carrying,American soldier made anemergencylanding on ahighway outside
Uganda’s capital
Kampala on
Friday,
"miraculously"
causing no
injuries.
The plane was
carrying eight
people – six
soldiers, the pilot
and co-pilot. It
was heading to
South Sudan from
Entebbe when it
was forced to turn
back due to bad
weather and then
land on a highway, after
running out of fuel
approximately 40 miles from the airport.
"Nobody was hurt. Definitely there must have been a bit of luck.
A highway is not a place for aeroplanes, so they were lucky to
find no vehicles," said Paddy Ankunda, Uganda’s army
spokesman.
It was unclear why the military personnel were heading to South
Sudan – the world’s newest country in the grips of a civil war –
and US Embassy staffs were not available for comment.
"The fuel that they had actually ran out at a village called
Kiwawu along Kampala highway," Freddy Enanga, Uganda’s
police spokesman, told. "The pilot soft landed there in the
middle of the road. There was no traffic there which enabled him
to land safely. It’s a major highway – but it’s not as busy as
Entebbe highway."
"Emergency teams from Entebbe International airport were
quickly dispatched to refuel the fixed-wing craft so that it could
return to base," Enanga added.
Ankunda also said that this was the second time a plane had
landed on one of the roads between Kampala and Entebbe.
According to him, last year, a plane flown by an American also
crash-landed with no casualties.