A small plane made a rough landing along a levee in Western Broward Thursday evening.
The aircraft touched down and flipped near the Sawgrass Expressway and Atlantic Boulevard. The Cessna 152 lost power before crash landing, Broward Sheriff's Fire Rescue said.
A female instructor and an 18-year-old male student pilot on board escaped the wreck with no injuries, officials said.
The two were flying out of Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport and practicing touch-and-go landings when the pilot realized they weren't going to make it back to the runway.
The pilot told NBC 6 she had to decide whether to land east of I-75 and crash into homes or land in the rough terrain.
"We climbed up at 2,000," the pilot, who didn't want to be identified, said. "It did great. Nothing wrong. And then we started to lose power and that's when we decided to come here."
The pilot said once things started to go wrong, she followed an emergency check list and procedures to guarantee the safest possible landing.
"Just passed Sawgrass, that's when we lost all the power and then we knew we could not make it there," the pilot said, "so I just decided to choose here other than all the houses and have difficulty choosing a spot."
Local
The plane started to descend around 7:45 p.m., according to the pilot. She said that it could have been worse had it been later at night.
"...At that time of night, I would just look for the highway," she said.
BSO Fire Rescue, Tamarac Fire Rescue, Coral Springs Fire Rescue and Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission responded to the incident.
