Two men arrested on drug charges after landing a plane on a California highway

Two Oceanside, California, men were arrested after a plane full of cocaine landed on a state highway.

Gabriel Leon Breit, 21, and Troy Othneil Smith, 36, are accused of using a single-engine plane to transport a large amount of narcotics, the Oceanside Police Department said.

They have been jailed on suspicion of conspiracy and transporting controlled substances and are being held on $20,000 bail, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Shortly before 1:45 a.m. Thursday, the plane made an emergency landing on state Route 76, with the pilot reporting engine trouble, according to the Federal Aviation Administration and police.

No one was injured, but when police searched the plane, they found drugs.

Police “observed one of the individuals discard a backpack into the nearby brush. … During the investigation, a small amount of cocaine was located on the passenger of the plane, and then the subsequent investigation into that revealed approximately one kilo of suspected cocaine in the backpack that was discarded,” Oceanside Assistant Police Chief Taurino Valdovinos said at a news conference.

Mr. Breit was the pilot and Mr. Smith the passenger, according to police.

Photos of the plane that police uploaded to social media show its registration number as N1711T. According to the FAA registry, the plane is owned by Leadturn LLC, based in San Diego.

The plane left Falcon Field in Mesa, Arizona, at 11:09 p.m. Wednesday. It was headed to Bob Maxwell Memorial Field, the municipal airport in Oceanside, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware.

The owner of the plane, who did not provide a name, told KNSD-TV in San Diego that he rents out the plane via the Plus One Flyers flying club.

Plus One confirmed to the news station that the plane was rented to Mr. Breit and Mr. Smith, who told them they were a flight instructor and a prospective pilot.

“You just can’t write this stuff. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. That this is what people do,” the plane’s owner said.