Pilot of suspected drug-smuggling plane makes emergency landing on SR-76 in San Diego County

Two San Diego County men were arrested today on suspicion of cocaine smuggling after making a predawn emergency landing in a light airplane on State Route 76 in Oceanside.

The pilot of the Piper PA-28 Cherokee safely landed the single-engine aircraft on the eastbound side of the highway near Canyon Drive about 1:40 a.m. Thursday after reporting engine trouble, according to the Oceanside Police Department.

"From what I understand, there was no traffic, and there were no close calls (with vehicles),'' OPD Assistant Chief Taurino Valdovinos told reporters.   

When officers arrived, they found the men who had been traveling in the plane -- later identified as Gabriel Leon Breit, 21, and 36-year-old Troy Othneil Smith -- in the area, uninjured.

As officers took stock of the situation, one of them saw Smith allegedly drop a backpack he was carrying into a patch of brush, "which obviously raised concerns," Valdovinos said. Police then detained and searched the pair, allegedly finding a small quantity of cocaine on one of them.

At that point, officers retrieved the discarded backpack, discovering about a kilogram of the drug inside it, according to police.   

Breit and Smith were then arrested and booked into county jail in Vista on suspicion of illegally transporting a controlled substance and participating in a criminal conspiracy.

Investigators believe that the suspects had flown in the rented airplane, with Breit at the controls, from Phoenix, Valdovinos told news crews during an afternoon briefing.