Lombard pilot unhurt in emergency landing on Lake Shore Drive
BY LEEANN SHELTON, ASHLEE REZIN AND FRANCINE KNOWLES Staff Reporters September 22, 2013 1:56PM
John Pedersen, a pilot of five years, discusses his plane's emergency landing on Lake Shore Drive on Sunday. | Sun-Times~Ashley Rezin
Article Extras
A pilot escaped unhurt after a mechanical problem forced him to make an emergency landing on Lake Shore Drive near Grant Park Sunday morning.
John Pedersen, 51, said he was taking a leisurely cruise over the lakefront flying east from Schaumburg Regional Airport when the plane started shaking violently after the elevator on the plane broke loose. The elevator, part of the plane’s stabilizer, enables the tail to go up and down. Pedersen said he could see it flying around.
“I thought the plane was going to break apart, so I just had to put it down,” said Pedersen, as he stood in a grassy area near the lakefront trail where police pushed the aircraft after the emergency landing.
“There’s no way I could have made it back to Schaumburg, O’Hare or Midway,” he said.
He still had control and decided to land in the northbound lanes of Lake Shore Drive near Jackson after making a mayday call to O’Hare, he said, noting the problem started when he was about 2,000 feet south of the Willis Tower.
The single-engine airplane landed about 6 a.m., police and fire officials said. No one was hurt.
“I timed the stoplights,” said Pedersen, a Lombard resident and pilot of five years. “There wasn’t a whole lot of traffic. I thought it was the safest place to put the plane down.”
Two vehicles struck the aircraft’s left wing after he landed but drove off, Pedersen said.
The experimental fixed-wing aircraft, a RANS S-6 Coyote II, was built in 2003, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.
“This could have been fatal, been much worse. The toughest thing now is getting it out of here,” said Chicago Police Sgt. Craig Roberts, one of many police and fire officials gathered at the lakefront Sunday morning.
Only one person was aboard the aircraft, and the FAA will be investigating, spokeswoman Elizabeth Isham Cory said.
Chicago police at the scene said no citations will be issued.
“My aviation career ends when they put me in a box in the ground,” said Pedersen, who added that he plans to continue flying the plane, once it is repaired.
He said he’s never had anything like this happen before.
“There’s always a risk. I always look for a place to land,” he said, adding he takes leisurely flights every week. “That’s important. That’s probably what saved my life today.”
Pedersen said he didn’t file a flight plan because that isn’t required, but his plane was required to have a transponder, which enabled O’Hare to locate him. The plane passed an annual inspection a couple of months ago, he said.
