A plane crashed near the sports field at Monarch Park Collegiate Institute in Toronto on Tuesday.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
David Sydney-Cariglia saw the struggling plane before he heard it.
He’d been focusing on his son playing soccer at St. Patrick Catholic Secondary School in Toronto’s east end. It was a cloudless Monday night in September. As dusk settled in and the floodlights hummed, a strange shape whispered over the field.
“I almost felt like I could touch it,” said Mr. Sydney-Cariglia, recalling the moment he noticed the plane slipping silently toward a crash landing that would dodge countless evening park-goers and soccer players, somehow leaving all unharmed.
The plane was sinking fast as it glided past the field and over an outdoor rink where some friends were playing pickleball.
“There was a slight hum and these lights flying down diagonally,” one pickleball player, Sanjana Bhatia, recalled.
“My friend and I thought it was just a drone or something like that.”
It skirted some treetops before disappearing out of sight precisely over Monarch Park Collegiate, home to another busy soccer pitch.
Iain Thomas was sitting in the bleachers overlooking the field unaware the plane was slipping silently toward him. On the pitch below, his son was playing a seven-on-seven scrimmage with his club team, the Cherry Beach Falcons, a squad for kids born in 2011.
A glint to the south caught his attention.
“I just saw this light and thought ‘That seems strange,’” said Mr. Thomas. “And then within a blink of an eye, it was this huge crash and bang.”
He thought a building had collapsed until he started running toward the sounds and saw the plane, a four-seat Piper Cherokee built in 1967.
The aircraft came to rest at the edge of a school parking lot, caught in a chain-link fence, the only thing separating it from the busy playing field just 20 feet away.
Falcons assistant coach Shawn Phelan was playing goal when he heard the bang and immediately ran toward the wreckage. “I thought I’d be pulling people out,” he said. “But they came spilling out, a woman and two guys.”
The woman repeatedly apologized to the two men, he said.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada says engine failure precipitated the crash and the plane was listed by aviation rental company Flight Club.Chris Young/The Canadian Press
One of the pickleball players, Michael Mead, was also among the first on the scene. There were no flames nor smoke, the aircraft cabin was upright, and the engine made a ticking sound, “like a lawnmower,” he recalled.
He saw a young man comforting a woman. Mr. Mead approached her and found out that he was a passenger and she was the pilot. He asked what happened and she told him the plane had lost power.
Mr. Mead said she told him she needed to land somewhere and saw the park lights, apparently referring to the pickleball rink. When she saw players on the court, she had to abort the plan, he recalled her saying.
Witnesses said the pilot had managed to avoid the pickleball court, two soccer fields, parked cars, a major train corridor and all the treetops.
“I don’t think she could have done a better job than what she did. I mean, it’s a pretty tough situation, dark. And nobody got hurt,” said Michael Maher, another pickleball player.
“You did an amazing job, like, you saved your passengers, and you saved a whole bunch of people here,” Mr. Mead said he told the pilot.
The pilot appeared despondent in spite of the compliments, he said.
Mr. Mead said the second passenger, a husky, older man, was sitting on the curb with the only visible injury among the trio, a scratch on his hand. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada said that engine failure precipitated the crash and that the plane was travelling from Orillia, Ont., to Toronto’s Billy Bishop airport.
The plane was listed by aviation rental company Flight Club. In a statement, Flight Club chief executive officer Mathew Fernandez said the pilot made a “forced approach” and he credited the pilot with “great proficiency and focus.”
The plane is registered to a numbered company. Its directors did not respond to requests for comment. The Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
“It’s just amazing how she didn’t kill someone or crash into a building or hit a soccer player. It’s just really miraculous,” Ms. Bhatia said. “I’m so thankful.”