WKYT-TV reports Dean and Cindy Stoops and their two dogs were on their way home from Thanksgiving with family in North Carolina on Friday afternoon.
Dean Stoops was piloting the plane. He told the station he could not get the plane to full power when he tried to level off as he neared the Capital City Airport.
Instead of flying over the city and risking a crash there, he decided to land in an open field in Franklin County, about seven or eight miles from the airport.
No one was hurt and the plane was not damaged in the landing.