A Fort Bragg man was forced to land his airplane on Highway 101 Saturday shortly after taking off from the Ukiah Municipal Airport.
“I’m a bit shaken,” said Tony Barlow, who had just taken off from the Ukiah airport around 11:30 a.m. July 8, when he started having engine troubles.
“I couldn’t gain altitude, and I knew I couldn’t make it back to the runway,” said Barlow, who then landed his Cessna 150 in the northbound lane of Hwy. 101 just south of the Talmage Road exit.
“The vehicles just made room for me,” he said, adding that he looked at the southbound traffic as he was nearing the road and saw many people with their eyes bugging out and mouths open.
Since his plane is so light, Barlow was able to push it out of the traffic lanes and onto the shoulder of the highway shortly after landing safely with no collisions, damage or injuries.
“It was a textbook emergency landing,” said Waylon Hockemier of the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority, who had just been released from battling five fires along the highway a couple of miles south of the landing site when he saw the plane going down. “I told my passenger to look out for the plane and we called it in.”
Officers from the California Highway Patrol responded to the incident, asking Barlow for his license and registration as if he were any other freeway driver.
Firefighters then cut through the barbed wire fence along the freeway so they could push the plane onto Hastings Road, where the mechanic Barlow contacted could hopefully repair it.
The CHP is notifying the Federal Aviation Administration and will inform the National Traffic Safety Board.
Barlow said he has been flying for 40 years, but has only had the Cessna for the past three.
“I was heading out to practice my landings,” he said.
His wife, who is also a pilot, said, “this is what you train for.”
