A small Cessna 177 Cardinal crashed at St-Hubert airport on Montreal’s South Shore Thursday afternoon, sending the pilot to hospital and delaying or cancelling flights to and from the airport.
The crash occurred at 4:06 p.m. as the four-seater plane was trying to land on Runway 24 Right. Airport firefighters and the Longueuil fire department responded to bring the blaze under control, a spokesperson for the airport told The Gazette.
Injuries to the pilot, who was the only person on board, were not believed to be life-threatening, according to MET — Montreal Metropolitan Airport.
Flight tracking website FlightRadar24 shows the plane took off from Havre-St-Pierre at 11:15 a.m., made a brief stop at Mont-Joli Regional Airport near Rimouski, before proceeding to St-Hubert.
“Runway 24R-06L will remain closed until further notice to allow emergency services to carry out their intervention and for the competent authorities to complete the required procedures,” the airport said.
“This closure is causing disruptions to commercial flights for an indeterminate period. We apologize for the inconvenience caused to passengers.”
The runway finally reopened around 6:30 p.m., after the wreckage was cleared.
“With all required inspections and verifications now completed, airport safety has been fully restored, and all airport operations can proceed under safe conditions,” an airport spokesperon said.
A NAV Canada notice told pilots and airlines to expect delays up to 45 minutes. Touch-and-go landings, which allow pilots to train by landing and immediately taking off again, were prohibited while the airport dealt with the backlog of flights.
Several arriving flights were diverted to other airports in the wake of the crash. Porter Airlines flight 392 from Edmonton and 414 from Calgary were diverted to Ottawa International Airport. Porter flight 2436 from Hamilton made a U-turn an hour into its flight and returned to Hamilton, while Porter 2368 from Charlottetown also returned to its originating airport while in flight. Porter flight 143 from Toronto was cancelled outright.
The airport’s new passenger terminal, which is used by Porter and Pascan Aviation, opened only last month. But the airport is mainly used by smaller general aviation aircraft, including by pilots in training.
A spokesperson for the Transportation Safety Board of Canada said in a statement they are still gathering information.
“We are not planning on deploying investigators to the scene.”
The airport, now known as MET — Montreal Metropolitan Airport, opened a new passenger terminal in June, which restored regular commercial flights to St-Hubert.