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- Doreen Birchmore, inset, dangled upside
down for 90 minutes yesterday until rescuers freed her after her single-engine
plane careened off a roof and slammed into the upper branches of an oak
tree in the Don Valley Parkway-Lawrence Ave. area. The 69-year-old suffered
a broken wrist and facial bones. TORONTO - A 69-year-old woman dangled
upside down for 90 agonizing minutes as rescue crews gingerly worked to
free her after the single-engine plane she was flying careened off the
roof of a Don Mills school and slammed into an old oak tree.
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- Miraculously, Doreen Birchmore suffered
only a broken wrist and facial bones in the spectacular crash that stunned
residents and school children in the quiet, tree-lined street nestled in
the posh Don Valley Parkway-Lawrence Ave. area.
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- The four-seater plane -- a Grumman Traveller
-- smashed into a large oak tree, lodged upside down 20 metres above Chris
Bruyere's home on Waxwing Place.
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- "What a way to meet the neighbours,"
said a shaken Bruyere, 36, who moved his family into the upscale neighbourhood
only three days ago.
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- He said he moved out of his Harbourfront
condominium so his kids aged 8 and 7 could enjoy more of the outdoors.
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- "I was inside just listening to
my music," said Bruyere, who said he heard "a loud clanging noise
like either a dump truck or a train crash" shortly before noon.
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- The commercial realtor for Avison Young
Real Estate said he ran into his sprawling backyard only to smell gas.
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- "I automatically thought there was
a train derailment."
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- After searching around, Bruyere spotted
officers arriving at the scene and asked what had happened.
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- ENGINE TROUBLE
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- "He told me 'There's a plane in
your tree, sir.' I couldn't believe it," he said.
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- Toronto Police Sgt. Lorna Kozmik said
the plane had just left Buttonville Airport after Birchmore dropped off
her instructor following a morning of flight instrument training.
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- Several minutes after take-off, police
said Birchmore radioed the Toronto City Centre Airport to tell them she
was having engine trouble and was attempting a forced landing.
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- Kozmik said it is believed the plane's
engine cut out at 2,000 feet and the pilot may have hit the roof of Greenland
Public School, "thinking it was a parking lot."
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- All 225 students at the school were inside
eating lunch at the time.
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- Zladko Hasanagic was gardening at his
nearby Greenland Rd. home when he saw the plane narrowly miss one of his
trees.
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- 'HUGE NOISE'
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- "I saw the plane flying very, very
low and then I heard this huge noise," said Hasanagic, 46. "You
could see a bit of the plane but there was really nothing any of us could
do."
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- As more police, ambulance crews and firefighters
arrived on scene, hordes of students from nearby Don Mills Collegiate and
Don Mills Middle School watched in amazement as North York firefighter
Bill Pollock and Sgt. Steve Andrews from CFB Trenton used a ladder to get
up to the stranded woman.
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- "She was looking at us from above,"
said Pollock, a pilot himself, who praised Birchmore as "a real trooper."
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- "She told us she was doing pretty
fine," Pollock said, adding "she was answering all of my questions.
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- "To land in the tree, to land on
the road ... as long as you walk away from it and didn't hurt anyone you've
done pretty good."
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- After stabilizing the woman and securing
the plane to the tree, firefighters removed wooden fencing and cut down
some trees and bushes to get a fire truck into the yard.
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- Shorty before 1:30 p.m., the woman was
plucked out of the tree with the aid of an aerial tower, strapped into
a gurney and whisked past reporters to hospital, where doctors said her
injuries were not life-threatening.
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- Kozmik said Birchmore, a pilot with 10
years' flying experience, did an admirable job of landing.
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- "She kept her cool. She's very lucky,"
she said.
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- Rick Pilson, an investigator with the
Transportation Safety Board of Canada, said: "The bent prop (propellers)
are a good indication that the plane was not moving fast."
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- The crash remains under investigation.
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