This photo shows Dillon Road in the Indio Hills area. A pilot of a Ercoupe 415-C made an emergency landing in the area on December 16th, 2019.
Aircraft made a precautionary landing on a road.
G and D Leasing LLC
https://registry.faa.gov/N99929
Date: 16-DEC-19
Time: 18:00:00Z
Regis#: N99929
Aircraft Make: ERCOUPE
Aircraft Model: 415
Event Type: INCIDENT
Highest Injury: NONE
Aircraft Missing: No
Damage: NONE
Activity: PERSONAL
Flight Phase: EN ROUTE (ENR)
Operation: 91
City: INDIO HILLS
State: CALIFORNIA
Moments after touching down on Dillon Road near Thousands Palms Canyon Road, the Ercoupe 415-C was being towed by a pickup truck with a C.H.P. escort.
"Obviously this isn't something we see everyday. We were able to go ahead and get it safely into a parking lot," said C.H.P. Officer Ramon Perez.
Eventually, the Ercoupe 415-C was pulled into the parking lot at the Indio Hills Community Center.
The pilot climbed out of the cockpit.
The man driving the pickup truck, Manuel Soto of Indian Hills, spotted the plane on the road after it came down and offered to tow the aircraft to the safer location.
"I was just coming back from work and I saw the plane going really slow on the side of the road," said Soto.
After the plane was tied down, the pilot, who would not talk on camera, was on the phone with a representative with the National Transportation Safety Board.
Officer Perez says the pilot told him he decided to land after the plane lost oil pressure.
"We determined it was more of a precautionary landing. It sounds like the pilot was having some sort of mechanical issue," said Officer Perez.
The model which was first produced in 1937, was considered at the time to be the safest fixed-wing aircraft that aerospace engineering could manufacture.
The pilot was the only person on board.
No was injured.
The plane did not appear to sustain any damage.
"I've never seen it before. It was really surprising. I didn't expect it," said Soto.
"Well, we prefer he would have landed at the airport," said Officer Perez.
There is no word yet on where the plane will go from where it was left parked at the Indio Hills Community Center.
The Federal Aviation Administration did not release the pilot's name, but said he was flying from Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport in Thermal to Cable Airport in Upland.
Original article can be found here ➤ https://kesq.com
The pilot of a small airplane made an emergency landing on Dillon Road near Indio Hills shortly after departing from Thermal on Monday morning.
The Ercoupe 415-C departed from Jacqueline Cochran Regional Airport and was bound for Cable Airport in Upland, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said. A low-oil-pressure light activated and the pilot decided to make a precautionary landing on Dillon.
Although the region is under a wind advisory through Tuesday night due to 55-mph gusts, there's no indication weather was a factor in Monday's emergency landing.
According to the California Highway Patrol, the plane landed just before 10 a.m. east of Thousand Palms Canyon Road.
No one was injured and there was no damage to the airplane, Gregor said.
It was towed to the Indio Hills Community Center, where the pilot was also taken, according to the CHP. Dillon briefly shut down but was open to traffic by 11 a.m.
The plane, which has a manufacture date of 1946 and is registered out of Tempe, Arizonia, was still parked outside the community center as of 11:30 a.m. and the pilot and CHP officers were not present.
FAA records show the plane is registered to G and E Leasing, but the listed address is also used by an area mortuary and the aircraft's owner couldn't be immediately reached for comment.
The landing was the second incident involving an aircraft in Riverside County since Nov. 25, when a pilot fatally crashed near Desert Center.
Canyon Lake resident John Brent Stackhouse was piloting a classic Beechcraft Bonanza V35 that went down about 5½ miles southwest of Desert Center Airport for unknown reasons.
He was en route to Hemet when he was diverted to Blythe due to turbulence, according to the FAA. An investigation into the crash has begun and could last at least a year, officials said.
According to FAA records, six other crashes occurred this year in Riverside County prior to November 25th, three resulting in fatalities.
Among those was a February 5th crash that killed a pilot and passenger west of Morongo Valley. They were identified as a 32-year-old Korean national and 28-year-old Los Angeles woman, respectively, who departed San Gabriel Valley Airport for North Las Vegas Airport in a Cessna 172.
Original article can be found here ➤ https://www.desertsun.com
Looks like the perfect area of the nation to just fly in and get a burger in town.
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