Small plane lands on road in Santa Maria Novella with no injuries after taking off from Oakland
A jet skier in a plane that fell off the end of a runway in suburban Los Angeles Tuesday landed safely, its pilot said, after taking off from a nearby Oakland military base.
The pilot, who wasn’t identified, told reporters about a quarter of a mile from the end of the runway, where the plane came down.
“I am very glad we managed to land safely,” said pilot Eric Wright, 33, of San Jose.
The single-engine Cessna Caravan, flying at night, landed at 10:30 p.m. Tuesday near the end of an eastbound runway.
The plane lost power and began to drift in the wind before it hit a grassy area and skidded to a stop on its left side in the intersection of La Brea Street and West Pacific Avenue, said John Thomas, the airport manager at Santa Maria Novella Airport.
A small boy, who was playing on a sidewalk nearby, said he saw the plane strike the ground just a few feet from him and thought that he might have narrowly escaped with his life. The child was picked up by another child playing nearby and was uninjured.
“It was an unbelievable feeling,” he said. “I was very surprised. I was screaming. “
The Cessna Caravan had been flying at night for nearly five years, a year after a plane carrying passengers from Mexico fell out of an Oakland runway and crashed into a shopping center. It was the second such accident at the airport with no fatalities and no serious injuries.
The jet skier, who was not identified, was flying the plane at night from a commercial flight out of Mexico, said pilot Eric Wright of San Jose.
Earlier, the pilot had been unable to see the runway, as the plane flew at night over the city, the Santa
