Plane With 4 Aboard Lands on Orange Freeway

A small plane carrying four people made an emergency landing Wednesday night on the Orange Freeway near Anaheim Stadium, narrowly missing most traffic except for a tractor-trailer rig that it clipped, according to the California Highway Patrol.

No injuries were reported, but traffic was halted in both directions of the busy freeway when the Cessna 172 came down at 9:06 p.m., the CHP said.

The single-engine plane landed in the northbound lanes, just south of Katella Avenue and north of Anaheim Stadium, where a Rams’ exhibition football game was being played.

The pilot--Michael Davis, 20, of Whittier--said he had taken off from Brackett Field near Pomona at 8:45 p.m. on a short sightseeing trip around Southern California when “all of a sudden” he began to lose altitude at about 3,500 feet over Orange County.

“I personally don’t know what happened; it lost altitude. It would not hold altitude and I couldn’t control the plane,” Davis said.

Tommy Aina, duty officer for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the craft continued to lose altitude. John Wayne Airport, with the nearest runway, was 7 miles away.

“The plane was losing altitude and got to about 400 feet off the ground when the pilot said, ‘I don’t think I can make it 7 miles.’ So he landed it right there,” Aina said.

Davis said he and his passengers were shaken but unhurt. Aboard the plane were Jim Risney, 36, of La Mirada; Darcie Davis, 16, of Whittier, and Harry Risney, 50, of Sacramento. The woman driving the tractor-trailer rig was not identified.

The aircraft blocked the two right-hand lanes and a SigAlert was issued as officers waited for a heavy-duty tow truck to pull the plane down off the freeway.

Officers blocked traffic in both directions of the freeway briefly so that the plane could be moved.

After several attempts, the truck with plane in tow, slowly rolled off the freeway onto the Katella off-ramp at about 10:15 p.m. Officials said it may be necessary to dismantle part of the aircraft to tow it from the off-ramp.