Plane makes emergency landing on 101 Freeway in Westlake Village

A small plane landed Monday evening on the 101 Freeway in Westlake Village, disrupting traffic as drivers were returning home at the end of Memorial Day weekend.

Nobody was injured when the single-engine Cessna landed in the southbound lanes near Lindero Canyon Road just before 7 p.m., said Michael Pittman, a supervising fire dispatcher at the Los Angeles County Fire Department.

The pilot, Brian Carson, 32, of Laguna Niguel, had radioed to the Van Nuys Airport minutes earlier that an he might need to make an emergency landing in the Calabasas area, but the reason was not immediately clear, according to Officer Weston Haver of the California Highway Patrol.

Carson landed the plane without hitting any vehicles, Haver said. Accompanying Carson on the flight was a pilot trainee, Trevor Peterson, 29, of Huntington Beach.

“The freeway had to be shut down,” Haver said.

Rescue workers managed to guide the plane down the freeway’s Reyes Adobe Road exit ramp in Agoura Hills in less than an hour, authorities said. Several highway signs needed to be cut down to make room for the plane’s wings, they said.