A pilot made an unexpected but relatively smooth landing on a muddy field near Coney Island Tuesday morning — then calmly summed up his aeronautical adventure as a “walk in the park.”
Paul Dudley, 51, was heading to New Jersey's Linden Municipal Airport, which he manages, when he sensed a mechanical problem with his single-engine Cessna 172.
Small plane makes emergency landing in Brooklyn
A pilot made an unexpected but relatively smooth landing on a muddy field near Coney Island Tuesday morning — then calmly summed up his aeronautical adventure as a “walk in the park.”
Paul Dudley, 51, was heading to New Jersey’s Linden Municipal Airport, which he manages, when he sensed a mechanical problem with his single-engine Cessna 172.
“Rather than going across the water, and maybe not making it, I found the closest available field,” Dudley said. “We’re trained to look for places to land. That’s all there is to it. It’s a walk in the park.”
Dudley, who was flying solo, was uninjured. He was so nonchalant about the incident he called his wife — they have three daughters — and joked that it wasn’t yet time for her to cash in his life insurance policy.
The 10:34 a.m. landing cut short a flight that had started at the Francis S. Gabreski Airport, in Westhampton Beach.
Dudley landed in Dreier-Offerman Park, a 74-acre park near Gravesend Bay, near where Bensonhurst meets Coney Island. The park hosts the annual Great Irish Fair and teems on Saturdays and Sundays with weekend athletes and Little Leaguers.
When Dudley touched down, however, there was no one around. He rolled over an embankment, but kept the 28-year-old plane steady and slowed to a stop.
“This is tailor-made,” he said. “I couldn’t have asked for a better place, other than an airport.”
The emergency landing prompted a number of frantic 911 callers — at least one thought the plane had crashed into a nearby crane — but Dudley said he remained calm throughout the ordeal.
“Panic doesn’t get you anywhere but dead,” he said. “This is just like driving a car — you make reasonable, prudent decisions.”
Investigators from the FAA arrived later in the day, interviewed Dudley, who lives in Southhampton and on Staten Island, and removed the plane so they can determine what forced the pilot to land.
Dudley, who has been flying for 20 years, said he planned to return to Southhampton today in another plane.
In May 2005, a plane crashed onto the beach at Coney Island, killing three West Virginia tourists and its pilot.
ee
why are people looking at him with suspicion ‘taking away his plane to inspect what forced the landing…’ if that other guy who crashed into the building was able to make an emergency landing two people wouldnt have been dead. Thank G-d he was able to do this and completly harmlessly, instead of another fatality, G-d Forbid.
Your mother
to: ee
Stop sleep talking and go back to sleep!
418
we responded with the ambulance, boy was it amazing to see how many different emergency service units responded!
yankees fan #1
its better than having another cory lidle episode?!!!!!!
safety first
very interesting article but ehh… what does it have to do with crown heights? maila an accident involving non-jews in CH but a plane crash in a dif neighborhood?
YKZ796
to: Safety First…
i think it was very nice of webby to put this up, i think it’s pretty big news that an airplane made an emergency landing in a Field in brooklyn.
why do you care anyway? if u dont want to read it, skip the article, finished.