(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Three years ago, a 25-year-old man from Ohio landed his crippled two-passenger propeller plane on South Lake Shore Drive and walked away unscathed.
He’s talking about that experience to WBBM Newsradio’s Steve Miller.
John Ginley and his girlfriend were on their way home to Ohio and flying above the Chicago lakefront at about 1,000 feet when their aircraft lost power.
His 1946 vintage Ercoupe essentially became a glider.
Ginley said he looked for something flat because “something flat would be survivable.”
And there was South Lake Shore Drive.
“The traffic was picking up but the traffic was moving, and our airplane moved at 70 or 80 miles an hour at the time. And I knew it would kind of blend in and mesh with traffic.”
There was a problem: the 35th Street pedestrian bridge. He said he didn’t notice it until his girlfriend, Alli, said, “Johnny, bridge!”
“We didn’t have the energy — nearly — in the airplane to go above it,” Ginley said. “So, I just kind of pushed the nose down a little bit and kind of made the best of the situation.”
They flew under the pedestrian bridge and landed on the roadway, becoming part of rush-hour traffic.
“We got a lot of looks. We got a lot of, ‘Keep it moving.’ We got a lot of, ‘Thanks for causing a 5 o’clock backup,’” Ginley said, laughing. “But that’s OK. We received the full Chicago experience in traffic.”
Ginley, now 28, says he and his girlfriend — now, fiancee — figured they were in the air for less than three minutes from the time the plane failed to the point of touching down on pavement.
“But it felt like an eternity while we were up there.”
Lake Shore Drive is now known as Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive.
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