Small Plane Lands on Chicago Roadway

July 27 -- The pilot of small plane flew under a footbridge and landed in traffic on southbound South Lake Shore Drive midafternoon Friday, making an emergency landing without injuring himself or anyone else, including his passenger, officials said.

The plane landed near 3800 South Lake Shore Drive a little after 3:15 p.m., after telling air traffic controllers he couldn’t make it to Midway Airport and being directed to land where he could, according to officials in a news conference at the scene. By a little before 6 p.m., officials were shutting down southbound Lake Shore 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 man “landed on the curb of Lake Shore Drive like you would if you were parking your car in front of your house,” Merritt said.

“He flew underneath the foot bridge at 35th and landed on the Lake Shore Drive southbound,” said Deputy Fire Cmsr. Bill Vogt, in the news conference.

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.

Photos tweeted out by the Fire Department showed people talking to firefighters next to a small blue-and-yellow single-propeller plane.

The FAA and possibly the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate, Cory said.

Three lanes of traffic were reopened open for traffic to pass on South Lake Shore Drive as of 4:45 p.m., according to officials. The plane was expected to be taken away by a private company hired by the pilot by early evening, officials said.

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