A small plane crashed on the under-construction Interstate-26 near Asheville, N.C. on Dec. 14 after attempting to make an emergency landing near Asheville Regional Airport, closing two westbound lanes overnight.
The North Carolina Dept. of Transportation was able to speed traffic reopening via a crew and two recovery programs already in place as part of the highway project. One is an existing contract with a local tow company that stations equipment along the work area to quickly respond to incidents, and the other is the agency's Incident Corridor Management program, which synchronizes traffic lights and other technology along pre-planned detour routes to help speed the flow of detour traffic.
Traffic was routed around the area immediately following the crash, said Chad Franklin, a regional state engineer.
Local news outlets report that two passengers aboard the plane were injured in the fiery crash that occurred at around 8:30 p.m., with both lanes opened at around 1:45 p.m. Dec. 15 and highway agency crews making emergency pavement repairs, spokesperson Jen Goodwin told ENR.
She said the crash had an impact on the construction, happening in an area where the widening project is active.
The area where the plane crashed is part of a nearly 17-mile-long widening project that began in 2019, a $531-million effort to expand capacity along the busy corridor in Buncombe and Henderson counties, including a new bridge on the Blue Ridge Parkway spanning the interstate.
The highway agency "had quick access to much-needed traffic control and our tow contract as part of the project was utilized to remove the damaged aircraft from the scene," said Franklin.
Heat from the fire and fuel compromised the asphalt in a small section of fresh pavement, he added, and workers were mobilized from ongoing construction work to make the emergency repairs completed on Dec. 15.
"We completed a tremendous amount of pre-construction/pre-incident planning including message sets, signal timing and pre-planned detour routes to help with traffic incidents during the construction process," Frankin said, adding that the state . Incident Corridor Management program "has proven to be a valuable tool."
