{"id":724836,"date":"2026-04-13T11:17:16","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/724836\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T11:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T11:17:16","slug":"its-100-a-miracle-seaplane-pilot-forced-to-make-emergency-landing-on-busy-phoenix-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/724836\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;It\u2019s 100% a miracle&#8217;: Seaplane pilot forced to make emergency landing on busy Phoenix street"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIt\u2019s 100% a miracle. This is a very busy street. It\u2019s always busy. But for whatever reason, when he crashed in this little area, all of the traffic was away.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>PHOENIX \u2014 A pilot and two passengers walked away with only minor injuries Sunday after a seaplane was forced to make an emergency landing in Phoenix.<\/p>\n<p>The pilot, Mike Tragarz, successfully landed the plane on 7th Street without hitting any people, cars or buildings.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I decided to literally look around and pick the best spot, and I couldn&#8217;t believe it looked like a landing strip,&#8221; \u00a0Tragarz said. &#8220;Literally, there were no cars.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The trio was taking a quick joyride around the Valley after taking off from Hangar Hacienda, a private runway in Laveen. Tragarz said they were cruising at about 2,500 feet when the engine gave out, and the aircraft lost power.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I was about to call for a mayday to Sky Harbor to try to make it to Sky Harbor, and that&#8217;s when I noticed we were not holding altitude. We were descending. We had lost power,&#8221; Tragarz said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The passengers and both pilots told <a href=\"https:\/\/bit.ly\/421IHUz\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">12News\u00a0<\/a>that Tragarz acted quickly to bring the plane down safely.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAt the last moment, he dipped his wing to not hit the street sign, which was amazing,&#8221; Hanan Haskell said.<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo__main\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/c895e858-ba17-404e-948f-04503dfe4287_1140x641.jpg\"  alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The plane skidded to a stop on the roadway, only striking a water main and some landscaping.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s 100% a miracle,&#8221; Phoenix Fire Captain DJ Lee said. &#8220;This is a very busy street. It\u2019s always busy. But for whatever reason, when he crashed in this little area, all of the traffic was away.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The landing left witnesses in awe.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhoever landed this thing was probably pretty skilled,&#8221; one woman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe landed it so perfectly. I\u2019ve never seen anything like this in my life,&#8221; another person said.<\/p>\n<p>The passengers are most grateful for the pilot&#8217;s success.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe saved our lives basically,&#8221; Haskell said. &#8220;Mike is our hero today.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Tragarz, a retired airline pilot of more than 40 years, told 12News he credits his training.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It could have ended much different,&#8221; Tragarz said. &#8220;I&#8217;m lucky, we&#8217;re all lucky.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The aircraft is a 1946 Republic RC-3 Seabee. Tragarz estimates there are only about 300 still flying around the world.<\/p>\n<p>The plane was towed back to its hangar. The NTSB will investigate to determine what caused the crash.<\/p>\n<p>                <img decoding=\"async\" class=\"photo__main\" loading=\"eager\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776079036_526_dd895092-a462-40c4-8a22-6c26459e43ec_1140x641.jpg\"  alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt\u2019s 100% a miracle. This is a very busy street. It\u2019s always busy. But for whatever reason, when&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":724837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,1589,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-724836","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-phoenix","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-arizona","10":"tag-az","11":"tag-phoenix","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-united-states-of-america","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116397123272599495","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=724836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/724836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/724837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=724836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=724836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=724836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}