The old saying among pilots is that any landing is successful as long as you can walk away from it. If that's true, then this counts as a triumph. A plane crash landed onto the very busy Freeway 91 in California near the city of Corona at around 12:31 PM local time on Tuesday, August 9. The two occupants in the aircraft didn't suffer injuries. 

Pilot Andrew Cho said the Piper Cherokee plane suffered an engine failure, and the aircraft was losing altitude. He wasn't able to make it to the nearest airport, so the Interstate was the next best option. Cho told KTLA the landing felt like a "hard bump," which was an understatement judging by the dashcam video above.

 

After bouncing off the road, one of the wings broke off. This resulted in a spray of fuel onto the highway, and the gasoline quickly burst into flames. The plane then slid across several lanes and came to a stop against a wall in the path of an onramp.

Cho and his passenger were able to climb out of the wreckage. During the chaos, a part of the plane, possibly the wing, struck the tailgate of a Toyota Tundra. The three occupants inside the truck did not suffer any injuries.

 

 

The Federal Aviation Administration is now investigating the crash.

According to the Corona Fire Department, which promptly arrived on the scene, the plane broke apart after clipping the truck and ignited on impact around 12:30 p.m. Video footage shared by the department showed firefighters quickly put out the flames. Dashcam video footage, obtained by USA TODAY, circulated on social media captured the moment when the small aircraft weaved in between cars to land.

The pilot, Andrew Cho, told Los Angeles television station KTLA his training allowed him to land semi-successfully in traffic. 

"It felt like a hard bump, hard to describe," Cho told the outlet. "We were 4 to 5 feet in the air when the plane stalled completely and fell to the ground. Your training kicks in, and you do the right thing. As long as you don’t panic, you get the best outcome."

The plane, a single-engine Piper Cherokee PA-32, had an unspecified "engine issue" while flying to Corona Municipal Airport, according to the FAA. 

"The pilot claims to have experienced possible engine failure on their final descent to Corona Municipal Airport," California Highway Patrol Capt. Levi Miller said, via KTLA. "(We’re) very fortunate today that the traffic was light, and the pilot appears to have made some good landing navigation that avoided what could have been a very bad tragedy."

The crash led to a major pileup in traffic on 91 Freeway, which was backed up many miles for several hours as police officers blocked all main lanes.

 

 

Check Out More Examples Of Planes Landing On Public Roads:

 

Making an emergency landing on a public road is rare but happens. Motor1.com covered an especially odd example in January 2022 when a plane landed on the street but came to a stop at a train crossing. The timing was really bad because a train arrived and obliterated the aircraft. The pilot was able to flee the scene before the chaos. 

In 2020, a plane made an emergency landing on a highway in Quebec, Canada. There were no injuries. The most intriguing part was that the other traffic on the road barely seemed to react to an aircraft coming down in front of them.