No serious injuries were reported after a small aircraft crashed just north of Buttonville Airport on Tuesday afternoon.
The crash occurred just before 2 p.m. According to Markham Fire, two people were treated by paramedics following the incident.
“Obviously there was a loss of control of the aircraft,” York Regional Police Sgt. Dave Mitchell said. “I’m led to believe it’s a male instructor and a female student in the aircraft. Thankfully, there were no injuries.”
Investigators said the privately-owned plane was taking off from the runway, but did not rise fast enough. The plane crashed careened into 16th Avenue and smashed through a fence before coming to a stop across the street in a ditch, according to police.
Mitchell said “it is really quite amazing” that the aircraft wasn’t involved in a collision with a vehicle on the road.
The plane sustained damage to its nose and sides.
In dash-cam footage obtained by CTV News Toronto, the small plane can be seen narrowly missing a moving vehicle on 16th Avenue near Highway 401 moments before crashing into a fence near the airport.
The plane veers into the path of the oncoming vehicle. One of the plane's wings appears to clip the ground before coming into contact with the fence.
The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is investigating the incident. In a statement, the agency described the matter as a “runway excursion.”
A representative from the safety board said the plane was doing a training maneuver called “a touch-and-go.”
“So you come in to land and you basically do a landing and you slow down and accelerate and then you do a go, another takeoff,” said Ewan Tasker. “It’s an easy way to do a bunch of takeoffs and landings if you are doing some training … but in this case something went wrong.”
The eastbound and westbound lanes of 16th Avenue were closed between Highway 404 and Woodbine Avenue as police investigated the incident and removed the plane from the area. The roads reopened around 6 p.m.
