This Is A Happy Story, Really

A sight-seeing flight in Montreal, Quebec turned into an amazing sight to behold as a Cessna 172 made a successful landing on a major city thoroughfare to the delighted amazement of hundreds of park visitors enjoying their Sunday afternoon.

The plane was flying around Mount Royal which is also a large park in the center of the city, when the engine failed. Pilot Gian Piero Ciambella, who was flying a father and his son on the tour, quickly transformed himself into a glider pilot and declared an emergency with the controllers he was already talking to. They no doubt wished him good luck and Ciambello found Park Boulevard, which is one of the major North-South arteries, stretched out directly in front of the now very still propeller.

The Montreal Gazette reported that as the plane coasted to a stop along Park, following a perfect landing, crowds of people - many from the weekly tam tam drumming get-together - ran after it, swarming alongside it, laughing, cheering and snapping pictures with cameras and cellphones. The Gazette continued that moments before the plane touched down, Glenn McCavour and girlfriend Melanie Bregman were on their way to the park, waiting to cross the street. "As I went to cross (Park), Melanie grabbed my hand to stop me," McCavour recalled. "One car went by in front of me, then another. But the third car wasn't a car: it was an airplane."

A major cross street had a red light, thus preventing any traffic incursion onto the temporary runway. Park Street was closed for four hours until the plane could be removed.

Apart from one snapped street sign and a slightly dented Skyhawk left wing, there was no damage, and not one of the hundreds of witnesses on this bucolic Sunday afternoon was hurt. 

FMI: Transport Canada