Plane Lands Safely on I-15
A Metro Traffic plane that made an emergency landing on southbound Interstate 15 Thursday evening, north of Miramar Naval Air Station, skimmed the front of a moving car, but no injuries were reported, according to the California Highway Patrol.
The pilot, described as a man in his late 20s, managed to steer his Cessna onto the right shoulder of the freeway near the Mercy Road off-ramp.
The pilot and his passenger, a woman, were not injured.
It was unknown late Thursday night what forced the pilot to land, but authorities reported that the aircraft apparently ran out of fuel.
Traffic on the freeway slowed as authorities closed one of the four lanes to remove the grounded plane.
As the Cessna came down it struck the front end of a Toyota Celica driven by Jim Bresnen of Rancho Bernardo. Bresnen and his wife, Diane, a passenger in the car, were not injured.
“We knew we hit something but we didn’t now what it was . . . and then, suddenly, there was this airplane,” Jim Bresnen said. “The pilot did a fantastic job landing.
“The first thing he did was to jump out and run back to check back on our car,” Bresnen added.
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