A small plane crash landed on the 91 freeway in Corona, California on Tuesday — and the pilot and the sole passenger were miraculously uninjured.
Firefighters at the scene quickly extinguished the fire that erupted about 50 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
According to California Highway Patrol Officer Keith Ballantyne toThe Los Angeles Times, the plane was attempting to land at the Corona Municipal Airport when “possible engine failure” forced it to make an emergency landing on the freeway.
Corona Fire Dept./Twitter
Speaking to theTODAYshow,the plane’s pilot Andrew Chosays he’s “ecstatic” to be alive. In the interview, Cho revealed that he and a friend were taking a lunchtime leisure flight to Catalina island when he began to have engine trouble and had to quickly decide where to land.
“In my judgment, we weren’t going to be able to make the airport landing field without possibly hitting a building,” Cho said on the NBC morning show, “and so I had to make a decision to land on the freeway.”
“I was pretty scary,” Cho added toTODAY.
The plane crashed into a Toyota pickup truck with three passengers. Besides some damage to the rear of the vehicle, the passengers remain unharmed.
Driver Armando Ramirez toldNBC Los Angeleshe was traveling from Santa Ana to visit family when he felt the crash on his truck. He told the outlet he feels very fortunate to avoid much worse.
“Absolutely very fortunate today,” said California Highway Patrol Capt. Levi Miller toKABC. “The traffic was light and the pilot appears to have made some good landing navigations and avoided what could have been a very bad tragedy.”
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The Federal Aviation Administration responded to the incident stating that they will be investigating the crash, theTimesreported.
source: people.com
