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ALLIGATOR ALLEY

Cessna makes emergency landing on Alligator Alley

tolorunnipa@MiamiHerald.com

A flight lesson ended in an emergency landing on Alligator Alley Friday afternoon after the pilot of a small plane noticed smoke in the cockpit, Florida Highway Patrol said.

There was no crash, no one was injured and only one lane had to be closed after the 1982 Cessna 172 RG touched down, FHP spokesman Sgt. Mark Wysocky said.

The flight instructor, Christopher H. Jones, 31, of West Palm Beach and the student pilot, Anders J. Mathieson, 24, of Pembroke Pines, took off from North Perry Airport in the early afternoon on a flight training lesson. When Jones, who was flying the plane, noticed smoke in the cockpit, he decided to make an emergency landing.

Just after 2 p.m., the plane touched down near mile marker 26 on the eastbound lanes of Alligator Alley, a 78-mile toll road that runs across the Everglades from Weston to Naples.

``There was just one lane closed for a while, but traffic wasn't really heavy so it didn't cause a lot of trouble,'' Wysocky said. ``We taxied (the plane) off the roadway.''

This was not the first plane to make an emergency landing on Alligator Alley.

In 2006, a Cessna, also 27 years old, had to land on the toll road because of decreasing oil pressure. There were no injuries in that landing.

In 2001, a single engine Cessna made a safe landing on the eastbound lanes of the toll road after oil began to spray from the plane's engine.

In 1995, Alan Packard died when his single engine plane crashed in the median of Alligator Alley.

After Friday's emergency landing, the plane was disassembled for safety reasons and was scheduled to be sent back to the airport, Wysocky said.

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