Plane lands on German motorway

The motorway was turned into a temporary runway

A German motorway has spent a brief spell as an airport runway.

A small plane forced down by bad weather landed on the motorway on Sunday.

No-one was hurt as 70-year-old amateur pilot Heinz Krueger brought the plane down safely.

The drama, near the north-western city of Vechta, took place on a part of the motorway linking Osnabrueck and Bremen.

Pilot Heinz Krueger was forced down by bad weather

Removing the plane by road would have proved tricky - so two days later police halted traffic on the motorway to allow the light aircraft to take off again.

Mr Krueger was again at the controls as the plane sped along the carriageway and took off.

It is not the first time that planes have come down on motorways.

In June, 2002 a jet aircraft crashed onto the M11 in the UK, killing one of the crew.

Emergency workers said it was a "miracle" no vehicles on the motorway had been hit by the plane.

In that case the plane had overshot the runway.

And in one of the UK's worst air crashes, a Boeing 737 crashed onto the M1 near Kegworth in Leicestershire, in 1989, killing 47 people.