Plane with engine trouble sparks concern at border
Two Air Force F-16 fighters forced a small plane to land here Wednesday afternoon after federal officials became concerned when the plane flew north across the Mexican border and the pilot did not respond to radio calls.
Once the Cessna landed at the municipal airport, the plane and its three occupants were met by Oceanside police, San Diego County sheriff’s deputies, agents of U.S. Customs and Border Protection and a drug-sniffing dog.
The three young men said they were heading from the United States to La Paz in Baja California on a surfing trip when the aircraft developed engine and communication problems, according to Juan Munoz Torres, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The Cessna was spotted by radar operators at the agency’s Air and Marine Operations center in Riverside when it was about 15 miles into Mexican airspace. The operators continued to watch as the plane turned around and began heading north.
“Once it crossed the border, it became a national security incident, and the Air Force was notified,” Torres said. The Air Force planes were scrambled from March Reserve Air Base in Riverside.
The F-16s’ pilots, unable to communicate with the Cessna, flew beside the small craft and used emphatic hand gestures to order the pilot to land. The three men in the plane are U.S. citizens, officials said. By early evening officials had confirmed the pilot’s story and the three were released.
U.S. and local law enforcement personnel were on heightened alert because of recent terrorist incidents in England and Scotland.
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