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Wild video shows a small plane making an emergency landing on a crowded California highway during rush hour — miraculously avoiding hitting any cars.
In the middle of the I-15 in San Diego, a single-engine Cessna T206 safely landed around 4:45 p.m. on Monday after the pilot reported engine trouble, as stated by KGTV.
Video obtained by NBC San Diego shows the plane rolling down the middle of the highway as stunned drivers in traffic watched on
“Mayday! Mayday! 57-Lima Bravo (LB). Engine failure on left base,” the pilot conveyed to air traffic control just before landing on the highway, according to logs from Live ATC.net accessed by KGTV, with .57-LB denoting the plane’s tail number.
Air Traffic Control attempted to open a runway for a secure landing at a nearby airport, but the composed pilot felt it was unlikely they would make it in time.
“I can’t,” the pilot replied. “I can’t restart it. I think I might hit the 15.”
The plane landed on the highway median and avoided all traffic so that no cars were struck.
The pilot and another person on board were uninjured, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
An official cause for the emergency landing has not been released by officials, but the pilot appeared to be citing on engine failure, according to KGTV.
The plane’s flightpath on FlightAware shows it took off from nearby Montgomery-Gibbs Executive Airport at 3:50 p.m. before flying along the coast to Oceanside. It then made a U-turn before being forced to make the emergency landing.
“At the altitude he was at, when the motor quit, he didn’t have a lot of places to go. He picked a good one,” said Rich Martindell, a retired aircraft accident investigator, told KGTV.
The incident remains under investigation.