Emergency road landing takes residents by surprise
When Jamal Hammoud got up early Wednesday morning and spotted flashing lights on 36th Street from the window of his northeast home, he thought fire trucks might be responding to a collision. But after a closer look at the road, he realized the cause of the commotion was a small airplane.
“I thought it was a CTrain accident,” he said. “When I looked, I couldn’t see the CTrain, but (I saw) an airplane.”
Just before 6 a.m., a Piper PA-31 Navajo twin-engine plane made a dramatic landing on 36th Street off 16th Avenue N.E. after it lost power.
The aircraft was carrying six people and had almost reached Calgary International Airport when it was forced to land. No one was injured in the incident.
After spotting the plane on the street, Hammoud rushed to check if his security cameras had captured the landing and found video of vehicles and then a plane crossing the screen.
“I saw the airplane landing, just missing a car,” he said.
Hammoud said he woke up his wife and joked, “I have an airplane, let’s go for a vacation.”
“I even woke up the kids and told them, ‘I’m flying you guys to school.’ And they all ran to the window to see the airplane.”
Andrew Greig said he and his father had just turned onto 36th Street during their commute to work when they heard something. They looked around in all directions before realizing a plane was about 2.5 metres above their truck.
“(It) just went right through the intersection, right through the lights, and landed right in front of us,” he said.
After they pulled over, Greig jumped out and phoned 911.
“The door (of the plane) opened and they kind of walked out,” he said. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, OK, so they seem to be all right.’ ”
Greig said it was lucky it was as early as it was and that the landing was relatively smooth.
“It could have been worse,” he said. “It could have been not the greatest picture this morning.”
Police had a stretch of the major thoroughfare blocked to traffic for much of the day, as federal Transportation Safety Board inspectors began trying to determine what caused the accident.
CTrains passed by the impromptu landing site as astonished passengers took photos from the windows. A steady stream of onlookers stopped in the residential area next to the plane to catch a glimpse of the unusual sight.
Marge Wawryn, who lives nearby, joined the crowd to take a look, surprised the pilots had been able to land the plane safely without colliding with any vehicles.
“It’s a good thing there wasn’t anyone in there that needed medical attention,” she said.
Transportation Safety Board investigator Mike Adam said the aircraft left Medicine Hat early Wednesday and the landing occurred after a loss of engine power.
“We’re here to determine what happened and why,” he told reporters after arriving at the scene. “We’re fortunate that the aircraft is intact and that there were no injuries or fatalities.”
After examining the plane, Super T Aviation owner Terri Super said the pilots “did a good job getting it on the ground.”
Super also said in a news release distributed by the company that she’s grateful there were no injuries.
About 5:39 a.m., an unidentified female crew member on the flight called into the airport’s control tower, requesting permission to land at a different runway due to a problem with a fuel pump, according to flight recording audio obtained by Postmedia. “I just lost right fuel pump, that’s why we’re requesting 35 Right,” the flight crew member told the control tower. No further audio of the flight, which landed on the thoroughfare about five minutes after that call, could be found.
Adam said the TSB investigation will include data collected on site, interviews with witnesses, pilots and passengers, and a look at other details such as maintenance history, weather conditions and operation policies.
“The TSB investigators have to examine all of the information before drawing any conclusions, and it’s too early to say what the causes and contributing factors are, or how they relate to this accident,” he said.
“We will be working with the operator and the Calgary Police Service and the Calgary Transit service to look at the information about this accident and help determine what the next steps will be.”
Adam noted this type of plane does not have a flight data recorder.
By late afternoon Wednesday, the airplane was moved to a grassy area beside 36th Street and the route was reopened to traffic.
TSB spokesman Alex Fournier said investigators have been interviewing the flight crew and no further updates were expected on the investigation until Thursday.
It’s the third time this week that a plane has landed on a road in Canada.
On Sunday, a small aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing south of Merritt, B.C., on the Coquihalla Highway. Also on Sunday, a plane near Chelsea, Que., made an emergency landing outside Ottawa. There were no injuries in either landing.