Force landed on a road.
Olson Products Inc doing business as Flight Services of Medina
http://registry.faa.gov/N99055
Date: 27-JUL-18
Time: 21:20:00Z
Regis#: N99055
Aircraft Make: ERCOUPE
Aircraft Model: 415 D
Event Type: INCIDENT
Highest Injury: NONE
Aircraft Missing: No
Damage: NONE
Activity: PERSONAL
Flight Phase: LANDING (LDG)
Operation: 91
City: CHICAGO
State: ILLINOIS
Before the successful landing, the pilot had called into the Midway control tower, “Midway tower … mayday, mayday, mayday,” he said, according to audio from LiveATC.net.
“Midway, go ahead,” an operator responded.
“Yes, sir, just south of the shoreline here. … We have an impartial-power, engine failure.”
The operator responded, trying to encourage the pilot to land in Midway, “Roger. Proceed direct to the airport and you can plane in runway 22 left.”
“Negative, sir, unable,” the pilot responded. “We’ll be somewhere down here on the shoreline.”
“And are you going to be able to make it to Lake Shore Drive?” the operator asked, giving a second option.
“Can you give me a direction on that?”
“Lake Shore Drive should be right up underneath you, right off to your right-hand side, sir.”
“OK, that closest on the water here?”
“Yeah, it follows just the, it goes straight down the lakeshore.”
“OK, we got it, sir. … We’re going on Lake Shore Drive here.”
The plane landed near 3800 South Lake Shore Drive a little after 3:15 p.m. Just before 6 p.m., officials shut down southbound Lake Shore Drive to allow the plane to be removed.
The man piloting the small plane landed it on the side of the southbound drive after it started experiencing some sort of mechanical problem, and neither he nor his female passenger was injured, said Larry Merritt, a spokesman for the Chicago Fire Department.
The pilot of “an Ercoupe 415-D aircraft, which is a fixed wing, single-engine aircraft, reported an emergency to air traffic control and landed on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago,” said Elizabeth Isham Cory, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration’s Chicago office, in an email. “The point of departure and intended destination are still being determined.”
The two were in the plane when it began to lose power and the pilot was directed by air traffic control to land on Lake Shore, according to a police media notification.
A man and woman had been flying along the shore of Lake Michigan from Wisconsin to Cleveland when they realized they were low on fuel, said Ald. Sophia King, 4th. The plane is registered to Olson Products Inc., an insect-control product manufacturing company in Medina, Ohio, south of Cleveland, according to the FAA plane registry.
“He was losing power and he knew it. He knew he had to make an emergency landing,” King said. “He had to think quickly and decided Lake Shore Drive was probably the best bet.”
“They’re a little shaken, but literally thanking God,” King said of the two. “This is miraculous.”
Original article ➤ http://www.chicagotribune.com
ReplyDeleteOn a quiet day you can barely squeeze a car in on Lakeshore, north or south. But to accomplish this on a Friday at 3 pm during rush hour simply takes the cake.
They did not even have a horn. Everyone uses a horn in Chicago. Its like normal communication. Most everywhere else it is considered rude.
Time to have a beer and give credit to the One above for watching out for them.