A single-engine plane flown by a 25-year-old pilot made an emergency landing on Highway 101 in Gaviota on Friday afternoon.
At about 4:30 p.m., the pilot noticed he was out of fuel and landed the plane on the southbound lane. He then taxied to the side of the highway.
Officials blocked one lane on the highway while the plane was refueled. The pilot then took off and later landed at the Santa Barbara Airport.
If they allowed him to take off from the freeway, someone somewhere must have taken a video of that at least.
Fuel exhaustion in VFR weather is inexcusable. Never fly by the gauges. Time is the controlling factor. A pilot I flew with in Alaska often said; “The four things you never want to do is run out of fuel, airspeed, altitude, and ideas, at the same time”.
Your’e right, there are very few good reasonable excuses for running out of fuel. Best to remove the caps & look, or dip & time it, as you state.
The plane must have still had a bit remaining, as the article stated they “taxied off the freeway”.
One lucky pilot.
I wouldn’t go as far as to say it is inexcusable. Plenty of issues can crop up such as a fuel leak or mistuned engine burning up too much fuel. But yes, typically it is pilot error.
Cool! I will assume there was no “opposing” traffic at the time? That must have been some sight if there was!
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