{"id":726853,"date":"2026-04-14T07:59:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-14T07:59:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/726853\/"},"modified":"2026-04-14T07:59:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-14T07:59:17","slug":"it-seemed-like-a-lifetime-pilot-recounts-emergency-landing-on-phoenix-street-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/726853\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It seemed like a lifetime’: Pilot recounts emergency landing on Phoenix street"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pilot showed inside his 1940s seaplane and recited what happened just before the emergency landing.<\/p>\n

PHOENIX \u2014 The pilot who used 7th Street as a runway to make an emergency landing showed 12News<\/a> inside his plane on Monday and recalled the moments before impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re talking about 45 seconds. It seemed like a lifetime. It really wasn\u2019t,” said the pilot, Mike Tragarz.<\/p>\n

Tragarz and two passengers were out for a joyride over Phoenix in his 1940s seaplane. The trio said they heard strange noises coming from the engine, and the cockpit started filling with smoke less than 20 minutes into the flight.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first indication that we saw was this gauge right here where the RPM went all the way up to 3,500 and probably a little bit beyond,” Tragarz said.<\/p>\n

He turned back toward Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, but it was too late. He said he didn’t even have time to declare mayday.<\/p>\n

The only clear path in sight was 7th Street.<\/p>\n

\u201cI saw that it was completely clear,” Tragarz said. “I mean, it looked like a runway.”<\/p>\n

Tragarz belly-landed the aircraft, avoiding powerlines and a traffic sign on the way down.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I knew I cleared the wires, I started a left-hand turn to line up with the runway,” he said. “Then I saw the sign. I pushed up forward to get up underneath the sign and then pulled back and got underneath it, and the rest is a sliding history.”<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

No cars, people or buildings were struck. The plane hit a water main, but firefighters were able to stop the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we hit anything, a car, people, there\u2019s no telling what really would have been the result,” Tragarz said.<\/p>\n

The two passengers on board told 12News they’re incredibly thankful to their friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cMike is our hero,” Hanan Haskell said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tragarz said it was his decades of experience and training as an airline pilot that kept them all safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the time that we had to react, it was that muscle memory and that ability to maintain my situational awareness that you get from that kind of training,” Tragarz said. “It saved the day. I don\u2019t take the credit. It\u2019s the trainers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are investigating the incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The pilot showed inside his 1940s seaplane and recited what happened just before the emergency landing. PHOENIX \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":726852,"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-726853","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\/116402007291157501","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726853","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=726853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}