A plane owned by the school of aviation overshot Willard airport and conducted an emergency field landing in a bean field Saturday morning.

The bean field where the plane landed was southeast of the airport, near Neil Street and County Road 900 North.

An instructor and a student were inside the Piper Archer III. Multiple sources said neither was injured. There was no visible damage to the body of the plane.

“Nobody was hurt, except maybe some soil and plants,” said a maintenance worker who declined to be identified.

“I know if I was up there I’d be soiled.”

The worker estimated that it took about an hour to retrieve the plane.

Four Champaign police vehicles escorted a Flight Star golf-cart vehicle latched to the plane Saturday afternoon.

“These planes are real light,” he said. “They’re not heavy like a car.”

The Flight Star trollied the plane back to the airport. The plane’s wingspan spread the width of both northbound lanes, slowing traffic to 15 miles per hour.

Vehicles pulled to the shoulder of the road to take photos of the convoy and plane.

In order to taxi the plane back into the hanger, maintenance workers had to tear off a chain link fence dividing the hangar and runway from aviation school grounds.

“There’s no gate big enough to get the wingspan through,” he said.

Crews were planning to dissect the engines to see what went wrong.

A flight instructor said he was unwilling to comment as to why the plane went down.