LOS ANGELES (AP) — A dramatic exchange was captured on a recording of air traffic controller communications as a small plane landed on a busy freeway in Southern California.
The recording was posted on the website LiveATC.net after the crash Friday morning.
The pilot told air traffic controllers he had lost an engine before the aircraft crashed and exploded into flames on Interstate 405, just short of a runway at John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa.
The pilot and his fiance were injured.
The Federal Aviation Administration said the pilot had declared an emergency shortly after taking off from the airport and was trying to return when the plane crashed on the freeway.
The official cause of the crash is still under investigation.
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