Norwood, Massachusetts – October 25, 1970
On the afternoon of October 25, 1970, a pilot-instructor and his student were practicing take offs and landings at Norwood Airport in a Piper Cherokee aircraft. At one point, as the pilot was preparing to make a landing approach to the airport, the engine suddenly stopped and could not be restarted. The aircraft was over the center of town at the time, and the pilot wasn’t sure if he had enough altitude to make the air field, so he turned the plane around and away from the densely populated town center, and aimed towards Norwood High School hoping to land on the football field. However, as he approached the school he saw that a football game was in progress, and instead aimed for the streets of a nearby housing development hoping to land there. The aircraft came down on Dorset Street, and would have made a perfect landing except that the wing struck a telephone pole and some wires which flipped it on its roof. Both pilot and student scrambled out and were not injured. There was no fire.
Source:
Providence Journal, “R. I. Pilot Lands On Mass. Street”, October 26, 1970
