As we've pointed out before in airplane mishap coverage, sometimes the line between good and bad luck is razor thin. Never was that more true than for the pilot and passenger aboard a Cherokee 235 who walked away from a highway landing and into the arms of local law enforcement last Thursday. The duo put down on Highway 76 north of San Diego with engine trouble. Both plane and people were undamaged but the incident prompted the usual response from police, fire and ambulance and the cops naturally wanted to take a look inside the plane.
This gimmick of using planes (big or small) to smuggle drugs into the US is as old as the hills and twice as dusty. Some 40 years ago, as a sales rep, all my clients were on airports. I landed in Del Rio, TX one day. I had no more shut the engine down that some guy walks up to me and offers to make a deal to fly about 60 miles into Mexico to bring "a package’ back and he’d pay me $5000. Went in to the FBO and asked to have my plane put in a hangar there rather than leave it on the ramp. The FBO says - yeah this happens all the time…
Had the pilot just left it in the back of the plane and played it cool I doubt anything would have happened. I don’t think a search of a plane is a routine police procedure after a successful forced landing.
Its like a scene from Poe’s Telltale Heart. Guilt reveled itself.
With that said I’m glad the person was a doofus. Now he is in custody and will not be a smuggler for a yet to be determined period of time.