They may not have seen a better option. I’m pretty sure this is the flight in question. Which, the linked video seems to be incorrect in stating that he problem occurred soon after take-off (total flight time is just over an hour). Guessing from the flight track, it looks like they turned east to go back towards the airstrip they took off out of. They were pretty well lined up with the runway, but didn’t have the altitude to make it. Granted, they should have been looking for places to set down as they went, and it may just be that the freeway looked like the best option at the time. There is a lot of residential housing in the area they were in and the open areas seems to have a lot of tree cover. The freeway probably looked like an oasis of open ground in a sea of houses and trees.
EDIT: this is the source I used for the airplane’s tail number to look it up on flightradar24.
They may not have seen a better option. I’m pretty sure this is the flight in question. Which, the linked video seems to be incorrect in stating that he problem occurred soon after take-off (total flight time is just over an hour). Guessing from the flight track, it looks like they turned east to go back towards the airstrip they took off out of. They were pretty well lined up with the runway, but didn’t have the altitude to make it. Granted, they should have been looking for places to set down as they went, and it may just be that the freeway looked like the best option at the time. There is a lot of residential housing in the area they were in and the open areas seems to have a lot of tree cover. The freeway probably looked like an oasis of open ground in a sea of houses and trees.
EDIT: this is the source I used for the airplane’s tail number to look it up on flightradar24.