Missouri ? A grandmother of five was flying her small plane cross-country when the engine quit in mid-air and she was forced to make an emergency landing in a muddy field.

Emma Hanner, 78, was flying her two-seater plane home to Denver from Lexington, N.C., when the propeller suddenly stopped west of St. Louis in New Melle.

As the plane hit the ground, one wheel dipped into an irrigation ditch. That bent the plane’s nose down and spun it around, Hanner said. A cut below her nose was her only injury.

Hanner said it was her first emergency landing in nearly four decades of flying. She described the 1970 Grumman AA1 as “like a Cessna 150.”

“I love that plane,” she said.