Veteran Pilot Breaks Silence After Landing Plane on Busy Phoenix Street Due to Malfunction
A joy ride over Phoenix turned into a life-or-death emergency on April 12 when a 1940s-era amphibious seaplane lost engine power at 2,500 feet. What happened next — a landing on one of the city’s busiest roads with zero injuries — has been called nothing short of a miracle.
Pilot Mike Tragarz and two passengers had taken off from Hangar Hacienda, a private runway in Laveen, Arizona, for a casual flight around the Valley. Less than 20 minutes in, the engine on their Republic RC-3 Seabee — a rare amphibious plane designed in the 1940s to operate on both water and traditional runways — gave out. With the aircraft descending and no airport in reach, Tragarz had seconds to act.
“I was about to call for a mayday to Sky Harbor to try to make it to Sky Harbor, and that’s when I noticed we were not holding altitude. We were descending. We had lost power,” Tragarz told KNXV.
“I just stopped everything and said to these guys, ‘We’re going to land, we’re going down. I’ve got to find a place to land,’” he recalled.
Why Mike Tragarz Chose 7th Street Near Camelback Road
Tragarz scanned the ground below and spotted 7th Street near Camelback Road — one of central Phoenix’s busiest corridors. In a moment that defied the odds, the normally packed road was clear. He committed to putting the plane down right there, guiding a 1940s seaplane onto a street that is almost never empty.
“I looked down there and saw 7th Street, and it was clear,” he said. “And I said, ‘Well, that’s where we’re going.’”
Phoenix Fire Captain DJ Lee called the outcome exactly what it was. “It’s 100 percent a miracle,” Lee said, per Arizona’s Family. “This is a very busy street. It’s always busy, but for whatever reason, when he crashed in this little area, all of the traffic was away.”
The landing damaged a fire hydrant and forced temporary road closures, but all three people on board exited the plane on their own. No one was taken to the hospital. No cars or bystanders were hit. Security footage captured the scene: a car passes through, and moments later the plane slides down the street in the opposite direction before hitting a water main and coming to a stop.
Passengers and a Bystander React to Mike Tragarz’s Emergency Landing
The people inside the plane credited Tragarz’s instincts with keeping them alive. Even in the final moments of the descent, Tragarz was making split-second adjustments to avoid obstacles on the ground. Those on board and a nearby bystander described a scene that was equal parts terrifying and extraordinary.
“At the last moment, he dipped his wing to not hit the street sign, which was amazing,” passenger Hanan Haskell said, per 12News.
“He saved us. He made [the] right decision at [the] right time. Everything was just perfect,” another passenger told KNXV.
Carol Sperr, a bystander exiting a bus nearby the scene, described the shock of seeing the plane overhead. “You’re shocked, thinking what’s going on. I was driving my wheelchair on the sidewalk, and I got to the German Auto, and I saw an airplane coming four feet above my head,” Sperr said.
Mike Tragarz’s 40 Years of Experience Made the Difference
Tragarz has more than four decades of flying experience, and he believes that background is what made the landing survivable. The plane came through in better shape than anyone might have expected. Investigators say the aircraft likely went down due to engine trouble, and a federal investigation is underway to determine the exact cause.
“Experience does pay off. I have to say that,” he told KNXV.
He summed up the landing with a pilot’s pragmatism: “Every landing you can walk away from is a good one. And yeah, it wasn’t smooth, it wasn’t pretty, but yeah, we’re very fortunate.”
This article was created by content specialists using various tools, including AI.
