James Coffey figured he was seconds from a disaster.
A look at his now-viral dashcam video, showing a small airplane slamming atop a car on southbound Interstate 95 just ahead of him on Dec. 8, shows how close he was to seeing that happen.
“We were just about three seconds behind it,” Coffey, an engineer from Melbourne, told FLORIDA TODAY a day after the crash-landing near Cocoa left one driver on the ground with minor injuries.
Coffey, at the wheel of a Chevy Traverse, was driving back home from Atlanta with his 19-year-old son on the heavily traveled highway on Dec. 8.
“We had a long day and were trying to get home,” he said of the rush hour traffic at 5:45 p.m.
‘It was pretty hair-raising,’ driver says of crash-landing
Just before the accident, south of State Road 520, an oxygen tanker truck was in one lane and a Toyota Camry was just yards ahead of his vehicle, he said.
Then came the plane’s sudden descent from the darkened sky, and its collision with the Camry.
“It was pretty hair-raising … the plane slammed down pretty good on the car,” Coffey said.
“The front tire hit it first, but it didn’t pancake in. It could’ve been so much worse.”
The FAA said the pilot of the Beechcraft Baron plane, owned by Tailwinds Flying out of Merritt Island, had reported engine problems. The Florida Highway Patrol, the agency investigating the crash, said a 57-year-old Melbourne woman driving the Camry suffered minor injuries after the plane’s wheels struck the back of her vehicle’s roof.
The 27-year-old pilot and his 27-year-old passenger were not hurt.
“I thought, ‘Oh my goodness, those people … I had my son in the car. But we didn’t see any explosions and the people in the plane looked like they were alright,” said Coffey, adding that he verified that all involved were OK.
Since then, Coffey has answered countless inquiries about the dashcam video, which has been shared widely online and shown on network TV news.
“It’s been exhausting,” he said, adding that he was glad everyone came out without any serious injuries.
“It could have been so much worse.”
J.D. Gallop is a criminal justice/breaking news reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Gallop at 321-917-4641 or jgallop@floridatoday.com. X: @JDGallop.
This article originally appeared on Florida Today: Driver’s viral dashcam video captures ‘hair-raising’ I-95 plane landing
Reporting by J.D. Gallop, Florida Today / Florida Today
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