Pilot Makes Emergency Landing at Pitchess Jail : Aviation: William Jennings brings his single-engine craft down in a field at the facility in Castaic after it begins losing altitude.

It’s back to the drawing board for William Jennings, a Lancaster resident who made an emergency landing in his homemade airplane at Peter J. Pitchess Honor Rancho on Sunday after the single-engine craft lost power, authorities said.

Jennings, 58, and his girlfriend, Eileen Salter, 43, left Fox Field in Lancaster about 1:30 p.m., climbed to 6,500 feet and headed for Santa Barbara in a Thorpe T-18, a popular model of homemade plane capable of speeds of more than 140 m.p.h.

As the couple passed over Pyramid Lake, and Jennings pulled the throttle back to increase speed, they heard something inside the engine break, and Salter watched Jennings’ face turn pale.

“He turned around and said, ‘We gotta find a place to land,’ ” Salter said.

Jennings, who built his plane over a 20-year period, turned and headed south above the Golden State Freeway, searching desperately for a place to land.

“These things are never easy,” said Jennings, who has flown for 30 years and performed an emergency landing once before. “I made it to an airport last time, but this time there wasn’t one close enough,” he said.

With the two-seat plane losing altitude at about 200 feet per minute, Jennings and Salter spotted an open pasture next to the freeway and headed for it.

“I was praying to St. Jude,” Salter said. “We needed a miracle at the time.”

Jennings set the plane down about 1:45 p.m. in a barley field that is part of the sprawling Pitchess Honor Rancho, which covers more than 2,800 acres and houses nearly 10,000 inmates, said Lt. Ron Markin of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which operates the jail. No one was injured.

The aircraft landed about 600 yards away from the nearest jail facility, Markin said.

Sheriff’s deputies at the Santa Clarita station said it is not uncommon for small planes to make emergency landings in the area. In the past, aircraft in trouble have touched down in the parking lot of Magic Mountain, an amusement park located across the highway and several miles south of the jail. About three months ago, a hot air balloon landed on private property across the highway from the jail, Markin said.

Jennings was allowed to leave the plane at the jail for one day, and promised to return today, remove the wings and haul the aircraft back home, said Sheriff’s Sgt. Barry Sandstrom.