http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/04/a-bit-of-a-miracle-small-plane-loses-power-after-loop-around-statue-of-liberty-and-borrows-alternate-runway/‘A Bit of a Miracle’: Small Plane Loses Power After Loop Around Statue of Liberty — and Borrows Alternate Runway
Jan. 4, 2014 6:52pm Dave Urbanski
Three people in a single-engine airplane survived an emergency landing on a New York City freeway Saturday, authorities said.
A 50-year-old man and two women, 43 and 20, were in the fixed-wing Piper PA28 Cherokee when it lost power just after 3:20 p.m., authorities and a police source told the New York Daily News.
The plane began its journey in Danbury, Conn., set for a loop around the Statue of Liberty, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said, the Daily News noted. On the way back the plane lost power; the pilot landed the plane on the Major Deegan Expressway and avoiding vehicles, authorities said.
“It’s flying low! It’s low!” Jarel Paul, 25, recalled his friend saying as they traveled the expressway, the Daily News reported. “The propeller wasn’t moving, and it went down right over us.”
“The situation was a bit of a miracle,” de Blasio said at Cornerstone Baptist Church in Brooklyn, the Daily News added. “I thought I’d seen everything in my life…it’s truly an extraordinary event.”
A police source said the emergency landing was not fuel-related, the Daily News said, adding that one female passenger suffered non-life threatening head injuries.
