A Hendrick Motorsports airplane headed to North Carolina after Sunday’s Sprint Cup race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway made an emergency landing at Memphis (Tenn.) International Airport when smoke was discovered in the cabin, a team representative confirmed.
There were no injuries. The plane did not have any of the team’s drivers on it, a Hendrick Motorsports representative told ARN.
The passengers returned home on another plane, while the plane that landed in Memphis was being evaluated.
FlightAware.com, which tracks airplanes, reported that a Hendrick Motorsports plane left McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas at 10:22 p.m. ET and made a stopover for fuel at 12:37 a.m. ET at Tulsa (Okla.) International Airport. The plane then left Tulsa at 1:17 a.m. ET on its way to Concord, North Carolina, before landing in Memphis at 2:31 a.m. ET.
The Federal Aviation Administration’s airplane registry lists the Hendrick plane as an ERJ-145 twin jet aircraft that was manufactured in 2003. The plane’s most recent certificate issue was June 8, 2015. The certificate expires June 20, 2018.
FlightAware.com listed another Hendrick plane arriving at 5:25 a.m. ET at Memphis to take team members back to North Carolina. That plane had returned to Concord, North Carolina, from Las Vegas at 2:46 p.m. ET. It left for Memphis at 4:01 a.m. ET to pick up the stranded team members.
Hendrick Motorsports has endured aviation incidents previously. A team plane crashed in Oct. 2004 after overshooting a runway in Virginia and hitting a mountain. All 10 aboard were killed, including car owner Rick Hendrick’s brother, son and two nieces.
In Oct. 2011, a plane registered to Hendrick Motorsports driver Jimmie Johnson carrying Hendrick and his wife, lost its brakes and ran off the runaway at Key West International Airport. Hendrick suffered four broken ribs, a broken clavicle and a concussion.
