A small plane made an emergency landing on a southern California highway — and the instructor pilot and his student passenger were arrested for smuggling drugs, according to police.
The pilot, 21-year-old Gabriel Leon Breit, called authorities around 1:45 a.m. on Thursday morning and reported that the Piper Cherokee Pathfinder was experiencing engine trouble and he would be landing on State Route 76 in Oceanside, NBC San Diego reported.
Breit and his passenger, 36-year-old Troy Othneil Smith, were uninjured and landed the craft safely — but when police arrived they saw one of the men hiding a backpack in the brush on the side of the road, Oceanside Police Assistant Chief Taurino Valdovinos said at a news conference.
Breit, a flight instructor, and Smith, his student, were detained.
Police discovered a small amount of cocaine on Smith. Another kilo of cocaine was discovered in the backpack. Both were charged with drug trafficking.
“It doesn’t surprise me. I think we have narcotics coming into our country in various ways, but I think the surprising part is the emergency landing and how we came across it,” Valdovinos told reporters.
Investigators said that the plane departed Oceanside on Wednesday afternoon and made a brief stop in the Phoenix area. Later that night, it was heading back to Oceanside when it was forced to land on the road.
The plane’s owner told NBC San Diego that he rents out the craft through a flying club called Plus One Flyers, which requires a private pilot’s license and a high performance aircraft sign-off to charter his plane.
Plus One confirmed Breit and Smith rented the plane as a flight instructor and student pilot, respectively.
The owner, who wished to remain anonymous, said he was alerted to the emergency landing around 6:30 a.m. and later learned about the drug arrest from the news.
“You just can’t write this stuff,” the owner said. “Unbelievable. Unbelievable that this is what people do.”
Breit’s grandfather, Victor Keisman, told the outlet that it “doesn’t make any sense that he would get in any trouble.”
“He was working out his hours because for the FAA, [pilots] need at least 1,500 hours to be a commercial pilot of a jet, and he said he was going to get it by the end of this year,” the grandfather added.
Keisman said he’s flown with his grandson several times.
“He is very professional, so it doesn’t fit with his character. I have no idea what happened. I have no idea.”
The Drug Enforcement Administration said it is working with Oceanside police and confirmed it served a search warrant Thursday morning.
The plane was on the roadway for nearly half a day for the investigation, which has been taken over by the North County Narcotics Task Force.
The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the circumstances of the emergency landing.
Breit and Smith were both released on bail Thursday evening.
