James Roesner, of Salina, left, was forced to land his Beechcraft Bonanza single-engine plane in a cornfield Thursday morning along U.S. Highway 24-59. He was flying to Kansas City, Mo., from Abilene, when the engine failed.

An engine failure caused a Salina man to make a crash landing Thursday morning in a Jefferson County cornfield about 4 miles northwest of the Lawrence Municipal Airport.

He walked away unhurt.

“No injuries, thank goodness, which is always a concern with an aircraft crash,” Kansas Highway Patrol spokesman Lt. John Eickhorn said.

Pilot James Roesner, 52, was the only person aboard the Beechcraft Bonanza single-engine plane that made the landing at 8:30 a.m. along U.S. Highway 24-59. Roesner said he was flying from Abilene to the Charles B. Wheeler Downtown Airport in Kansas City, Mo., to conduct business.

“I had an engine failure, and unfortunately due to my altitude, I could not quite make the field of Lawrence,” Roesner said.

He was in contact with Kansas City air traffic controllers, who helped him once his engine failed. “The guys did a fantastic job,” he said.

He also wanted to avoid landing on the highway, so he ended up in the field.

Roesner’s client in Kansas City picked him up, and the airplane was later hauled away from the cornfield.

Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Tony Molinaro said an investigation takes up to two weeks.

Because the small plane sustained damage to the nose gear, the FAA considers it a noninjury accident instead of an incident, which typically means mechanical failure but no crash damage, Molinaro said.