Early Morning Flight Ended In Off-Airport Landing

It's one of the things pilots train for and hope never happens. John Pedersen was flying his Rans S-6 Coyote II over the Chicago lakefront early Sunday morning when he heard a loud bang and the airplane started to shake violently.

Pedersen, 51, has been flying about five years. He quickly determined that with only light traffic on Lake Shore Drive early on a Sunday morning, that was going to be his best bet for an off-airport landing. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that an unspecified part "that stabilizes" the airplane had broken off.

Pedersen kept his cool. He contacted Shaumburg Regional Airport where he keeps the Rans, but at only 1,900 feet, he wasn't going to make it back to the airport. Pedersen said he "timed the stoplights" and set the plane down on the road. He said two vehicles hit his left wing when he landed, but the drivers of a black pickup truck and a tan minivan did not stop to offer assistance, or even see what they had hit.

Pedersen says the in-flight emergency will not deter him from flying again. The Coyote was transported back to Schaumburg, and he says it will be repaired. "My aviation career ends when they put me in a box in the ground," the pilot said.

(Rans S-6 Coyote II pictured in file photo. Not incident airplane)

FMI: www.ntsb.gov