Aircraft makes incredible 8pm landing on Los Angeles motorway after engine failure

A plane was forced to make an emergency landing on a motorway south of Los Angeles on Sunday (28 January), after suffering an engine failure.

Pilot Izzy Slod and friend Daniel Gross were flying from San Diego to Van Nuys Airport, in the central San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, when the engine on their Beech G33 failed.

Slod told local TV station KTLA that once the issue arose, he thought he could either land on the beach or at John Wayne International Airport, the closest airfield at the time.

However, with strong winds hampering his chances of making it to the airport, which is located 40 miles south of Los Angeles in Orange County, Slot quickly realised his best chance was to land on one of the motorways beneath him.

"I saw an opening on the highway and I went for it right away," he was quoted as saying by the Los Angeles Times. "I had to make a last-minute, last-second judgment on whether or not we could make it over, and we didn't have the airspeed to make it over, so I went under it."

Slod, who local authorities described as an experienced pilot, successfully managed to land the plane on the 55 Freeway in Costa Mesa. Both the pilot and the passenger escaped without injuries and the aircraft did not hit any cars, nor did it cause any incidents.

Chris Coatez, Costa Mesa Fire Captain, said it was a "complete miracle" that traffic was light on the motorway, when the pilot decided to land shortly after 8pm.

Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said the agency was investigating the incident.