Police Chief: No injuries reported after plane makes emergency landing on highway

During an Aug. 26 chat session, Tahlequah Police Chief Nate King updated the public on an incident wherein a plane was forced to make an emergency landing late Monday morning.

"We had a local pilot that experience an in-air difficulty; engine stalled on him and he was able to complete an emergency landing on the West Bypass. No one was injured. After a little bit of work, he was able to take back off from the Bypass and fly to the airport," King said.

Officers have logged over 4,000 calls for service; four burglaries; and 26 thefts for August so far.

"For the year, we're on a pretty torrid pace. We're at 29,766 calls for service so far for 2024. We've conducted about 11,000 building checks, about 9,100 traffic stops, about 3,000 pedestrian stops. We've arrested 1,016 people and have taken 1,600 reports," King said. "Our property crimes; we've had 67 burglaries for 2024 - about one every three days, which I think is a pretty good number for a town of our size."

There are two officers who are nearly half way through the Council on Law Enforcement Education and Training (C.L.E.E.T.) academy, and three additional officers who are in field-training.

"[They] are all in field training right now and progressing as they should so I'm looking forward to getting those gentlemen trained and then two of the three [officers] have to go to the C.L.E.E.T. academy after FTO. We are at full staff, dispatchers and officers but we're short five officers because of training right now," King said.

The Tahlequah Special Emphasis team worked traffic on Downing Street over the weekend and King said they've seen a significant decrease in reckless driver, racing, etc. in that area.