Curiosities 2 - The F5, the Beetle and the Landing

João Henrique Barboza Jorgetto • Sep 04, 2022

The year is 1980. Imagine you are driving your Volkswagen Beetle down a simple dirt road. A few meters of track and soon you arrive at the main, paved road, which will take you to the city. Suddenly a bang, a flash and a huge jolt! You cannot believe your eyes when you see immediately in front of you a huge fighter jet screeching to a halt in the lane that previously had been occupied only by you and your Beetle. Can you imagine the fright? That's what happened on the road that connects the cities of Varginha and Paraguaçu, in Minas Gerais, Brazil.

Two F-5 jets had been flying on a training mission when suddenly one of them had to land on a nearby road due to lack of fuel. The reasons for this lack of fuel are somewhat obscured by the mists of history, but the fact is that there was no other solution for the fighter pilot. Once the runway is chosen, the pilot begins the landing procedures while the other plane sends the information to the base with the objective of facilitating the work of the ground team, which in the future would have to remove the jet from there. Lined up on the road, the pilot starts the descent when suddenly, out of nowhere, a Volkswagen Beetle appears! At that time, it was impossible to perform any maneuver to avoid the imminent impact between the plane and the car.

In a matter of seconds, the vehicle was hit on the roof by the plane's landing gear, then felt the full force of the wind displaced by the turbine (the "jet blast"), terrifying the driver. The plane suffered no damage and managed to complete the landing.

The Brazilian Airforce showed up with its ground crew the following day to fuel the plane, carry out the necessary maintenance and configured the F-5 to take off from there and return to the base. But what about the Beetle? Here comes another curious fact of history. Legend has it that an Air Force team contacted the owner, seeking to compensate for the damage and, to the astonishment of the officers, the owner's answer was a resounding "NO". According to him, if the vehicle was repaired, who would believe his story?