Ex-Air Force pilot shares insights on I-805 plane landing

SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) -- It was a heart-stopping moment for those flying the Piper PA-32 that made an emergency landing on the southbound side of Interstate 805 in Sorrento Valley.

When the two in the plane touched down narrowly missing the fast-moving traffic, they escaped disaster, but the plane sustained significant damage.

“The freeway is probably the least desirable choice, an open field would be better. But the approach speeds on these airplanes is very compatible to freeway speeds, so if you can find a hole in the traffic and glide into that hole, obviously the people in front of you are going to keep going and hopefully the people behind you will stop,” said retired United States Air Force Lt. Col. Richard Martindell.

Martindell has done his share of airplane accident investigations.

"You’re going to look at everything. You got to look at the pilot, the pilot qualifications. You got to see if the other person was an instructor or passenger, what was the purpose of the flight, it looked like a training flight if you look at flight track on the radar,” Martindell said.

Martindell says while the investigation is in its early stages, this type of accident is the more straight forward incidents mainly because they can speak with the pilot directly.

On Monday, the FAA reported the emergency landing was due to the an engine issue with the small plane.

“When an engine quits, it's one of two reasons, either something mechanical went wrong with it or it ran out of gas. Both of which are easy to determine. You break down the engine, you look for anything broken, you look at the fuel tanks and you can tell how much fuel is in the tanks. There was no post-flight fire, that’s a hint,” Martindell said.

The two people on board the plane were not injured and no cars on the highway were hit or damaged.