Landing On The Freeway

“MAYDAY! WE GOT MAYDAY!” Frank Pisano screamed over the microphone to the air control tower at John Wayne Airport last June.

- Taylor Markarian

One of the two engines on his 1975 Cessna had failed, and he was now on a collision course with one of the busiest highways in America—Interstate 405, just south of Los Angeles—and there was no stopping it.

Driving south on the 405, near the airport’s runway, was John Meffert. A fire department captain, Meffert, 47, was heading home from his shift and had nothing on his mind that Friday morning but the Fourth of July weekend ahead of him. Then a low-flying plane caught his eye. After he took a second glance, a thought crossed his mind: “This plane’s going to hit me,” Meffert told Fox 8.