TRAVERSE CITY — A smoking engine forced a Northwestern Michigan College airplane to make an emergency landing in Montana.
A flight instructor from the community college landed the plane around 3:30 p.m. Sunday in Butte, Mont., after one of the aircraft's twin engines began to surge and smoke. The plane was on a training flight from Glacier Park International Airport to Provo, Utah, part of a student's cross-country flight time required for a commercial, multi-engine instructor license.
No injuries occurred.
The plane landed at Butte's Bert Mooney Airport, about a week after a deadly plane crash there killed 14 people.
Officials from the National Transportation Safety Board will review the case.
The plane left Traverse City's Cherry Capital Airport on Friday and made stops in Rochester, Minn., Minot, N.D., and Glacier Park, Mont. The plane is required to have a maintenance inspection every 50 flight hours and had accrued about 15 hours of flight time since its last inspection this month, college officials said.
