El Monte airport reminds of an interesting episode dating back to over 20 years ago. I was a freshly minted PPL in the San Francisco Bay area and decided to take 3 of my friends for a weekend trip to Los Angeles. We planned to land late night at Burbank. I was conducting meticulous navigation but when I found myself over the great LA area I was overwhelmed by the flood of city lights - even though there were many airports in the area I could not see a single rotating airport beacon (visibility was excellent). In desperation I was looking for any airport I could land at - finally saw a lit runway and landed, I had no clue where I landed but taxied to the only building where lights were still on and was greeted by some young commercial pilot in pilot's uniform working on his flight plan - he said (I still recall his words) - welcome to El Monte airport, nobody can find us how did you? Then upon learning of my problem he suggested that I takeoff, fly heading XXX and talk to LA approach telling them I was not familiar with the area and asking for vectors to Burbank. Perhaps not more than 20 mins. later we were landing at Burbank. I was humbled by this experience.
