A Liberty University-owned Cessna airplane made an emergency landing at Lynchburg Regional Airport shortly after takeoff. The student pilot and the LU flight instructor were uninjured, but the aircraft sustained damage after going off the end of the runway and landing nose-down.

 Jeffrey Westbrook

An airplane owned by Liberty University made an emergency landing at Lynchburg Regional Airport shortly after takeoff, announced Len Stevens, executive director of external communications for the university.

Just before 11 a.m. on Thursday, the Cessna 172 Skyhawk took off from the airport with a student pilot and flight instructor on board (the latter a university employee and LU graduate). The aircraft encountered a problem soon after departing, and the pilot radioed to the control tower, alerting air traffic control to the problem.

The pilot successfully made an emergency landing but was unable to stop the plane before it rolled off the end of the runway and landed nose-down after going over the edge of an embankment past the elevated runway, Stevens added.

“Both occupants of the airplane walked away without a scratch,” Stevens reported. “The NTSB and the FAA have both been notified, and they will be talking over the investigation at this point,” he added.