18-year-old pilot lands plane on Route 66 after engine fails: ‘I heard a boom’

An 18-year-old pilot hoping to fly his grandmother and cousins to Riverside for breakfast had to kick into emergency mode when the engine on the small plane he was captaining failed.

The flight planned from Apple Valley to Riverside Municipal Airport began like many others for Brock Peters, who got his pilot’s license in September. Everything was going “perfectly OK� after he did his preflight inspection of the Piper PA-28 aircraft Monday morning.

He was flying over the Cajon Pass when the situation deteriorated.

“About 15 minutes into the flight, I heard a boom from the engine. At that point I’m like, OK, that’s not good,� Peters, of Oak Hills, told The Times. “I’m doing the emergency checklist to get the engine restarted but nothing happened. I was already below the mountain range so I couldn’t contact the Ontario tower.�

Peters had trained for what to do in engine failure situations, but when he practiced, he always knew that if something went wrong he could turn the engine back on.

“In this case,� he said, “you have one shot to do it, and you’ve got to do it correctly.�

He could hear his grandmother crying in the plane but tuned out the emotions of his passengers to focus on finding a spot to land. The fields near the plane looked rocky, and trees made the landing seem far from safe, Peters said.

“Then I saw the road, the old Route 66,� he said, “and I took that chance to put it down.�

Although the road was smooth, landing on the highway presented other difficulties.

There was a car about 150 feet ahead of Peters heading in the same direction as the plane, as well as a car coming toward the aircraft as it was touching down. He knew he had enough space to land in front of the car that was heading in the same direction.

“The car coming toward me pulled off to the side ... before I landed,� he said.

Peters landed the small plane on Cajon Boulevard, right in the middle of the two-lane roadway. The second the wheels touched the pavement, he knew everything was going to be OK. He pulled off to the side of the road and called 911.

His passengers “were shocked,� he said. “I think everybody just had a deep breath. Nobody was hurt and the plane was completely intact.�

The whole experience, from engine failure to touchdown, took about four to five minutes, according to Peters.

The terrifying incident won’t deter the young pilot from continuing to fly, he said, and his end goal is to become a commercial airline pilot. If anything, he’s more confident in his abilities than ever before.

“I’m going to keep flying. This is my passion,� he said. “This gives me a little more confidence in those kinds of situations, like I’ve done it before.�