Trucker Helps Clear Freeway for Plane Landing

A quick-thinking trucker helped pilot Thomas L. Teilhet make an emergency landing on the Golden State Freeway on Saturday morning.

Seeing that Teilhet was circling the freeway and in apparent trouble, the truck driver turned his tractor-trailer around and blocked two lanes of busy traffic, allowing Teilhet to safely land his single-engine plane.

Teilhet was not injured and the plane was not damaged, but the landing backed up traffic for hours. The California Highway Patrol closed one traffic lane for about four hours to allow work crews to move the plane to the shoulder, CHP Officer Richard Magyar said.

Teilhet said before touching down he circled the trucker, who, he said, waved at him before turning the truck around.

“He gave me a place to land,” said Teilhet, 61, of Arcadia. “I’m indebted to that trucker. I don’t know who he is.”

After the plane landed on the northbound lanes near the San Fernando Mission Road offramp at 8:30 a.m., about 10 motorists got out of their cars and pushed the aircraft about 20 feet to the shoulder, Teilhet said.

“There was a lot of camaraderie and nice people,” said Teilhet, a commercial flight instructor.

A tow truck towed the plane about a mile north to a shoulder area near the Rinaldi Street exit. After the landing, two of Teilhet’s friends, a flight instructor and an aviation mechanic, helped him ready the plane for towing. As passing motorists gawked, the men removed the plane’s wings and planned to tie the aircraft to a trailer before towing it back to El Monte Airport.

Teilhet, who had taken off from El Monte Airport, said he was forced to land on the freeway because his Cessna 150 was losing power and running out of altitude.

His destination was Van Nuys Airport, but he told air traffic controllers he would have to cancel that approach. Teilhet said he also considered an emergency landing at Whiteman Airport in Pacoima.

He attributed his plane trouble to partial engine failure, possibly a cracked cylinder.

Teilhet said he was on his way to meet his brother and accompany him to a lecture on Parkinson’s disease at the University of Southern California.

Despite the stressful landing and the hot weather, Teilhet smoothly handled media attention. When three TV crews showed up to interview him, Teilhet said he asked them to question him one at a time. “I asked them, ‘OK, who brought doughnuts?’ ”

This was not the first emergency landing for Teilhet, who said he has been flying for 36 years. He said he has made it to airports following engine trouble or mechanical problems, such as wheels that wouldn’t deploy. He said he once landed on a desert dirt road in the Antelope Valley.

“[This] was the first time on a freeway though,” Teilhet said.