A pilot is dead and another suffered serious injuries Friday afternoon after their Cessna aircraft collided in mid-air over the Promenades St-Bruno shopping mall.
The crash happened at around 12:30 p.m. One of the Cessna 152's landed in the parking lot just outside the Belle et Boeuf restaurant where Jonathan Vanasse was having lunch.
"We heard a loud boom. We thought it was a car accident," Vanasse told reporters.
"We went out, just saw the crashed plane straight in front of the door."
The pilot who died was 21 and the other was 23, both students at the Cargair flight school in St. Hubert. The other Cessna landed on the roof of the neighbouring Simons store. Firefighters say the roof did not suffer damage but they had to cap a gas leak from the plane that was seeping into the building. The mall was closed and evacuated.
Two people at the very busy shopping centre were treated for shock.
"Luckily there were no other injuries," said Longueuil police spokesperson, captain Nancy Colagiacomo.
The Transportation Safety Board is investigating.
In 2001, one of Cargair's Cessna aircraft almost collided with an Air Nova flight departing from Trudeau airport but the Air Canada plane stopped its slight descent avoiding the smaller aircraft; they were about 200 vertical feet apart
Cargair said in a published statement it was collaborating with authorities and expressed its sympathies to the families of the pilots.
"We are concentrating our efforts to support our employees and students who are part of the Cargair family,'' the company said, adding it wouldn't be issuing any further comment.
Firefighters removing fuselage from plane that crashed at promenades st Bruno pic.twitter.com/fO7UmelioZ
— Rob Lurie (@RLurieCTV) March 17, 2017
The scene at promenades st Bruno where a plane crashed pic.twitter.com/b0fnsoYNpN
— Rob Lurie (@RLurieCTV) March 17, 2017