WATCH ABOVE: The pilot who crash-landed his ultralight plane on a major highway yesterday is talking about his close call. John Daly reports.
VANCOUVER – The pilot of a small plane that crash landed in Delta Wednesday night is out of hospital and speaking about his harrowing ordeal.
The 49-year-old was forced to make an emergency landing on Highway 91 after his plane suddenly lost power.
“Those planes, it’s like a flying anvil,” said pilot Paul Deane-Freeman. “That’s what they describe it as right, they don’t glide at all because of the drag and once you’re going down, that’s it.”
He was practicing water landings in White Rock and was about to circle his home in Delta when he heard a big bang. That is when the engine cut out.
“And next thing I’m at 800 feet, then 400, the trees are coming up and I stalled it twice over the trees trying to clear them. Barely cleared the trees. And then there was the second stall, I managed to clear the trees and get enough air speed to get over the second, to the right lane on Highway 91 there.”
Deane-Freeman could see cars all around him as he was coming down the highway. When he came down, one of the wings clipped a road sign and that is when he crashed to the ground. He fractured a vertebrae when the plane came down.
This is not his first forced landing. He made one in September, 2014 in a different plane after a piece of aluminium that holds the throttle cable snapped. Luckily that time he landed over a field with no problems.
Deane-Freeman will have to take it easy for the next few days, but says his flying days are far from over.
WATCH: Ultralight plane lands on highway in Delta:
– With files from Grace Ke.
Comments