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With three passengers on board, the pilot of a Piper Cherokee plane travelling from Orillia to Billy Bishop airport in Toronto, was forced to land the small aircraft on a parking lot at the side of Monarch Park Stadium, a heavily used sports field near Coxwell Ave., south of the Danforth.

According to air traffic audio obtained by the CBC, the pilot told air traffic control at Billy Bishop airport downtown that she had engine failure and that she couldn鈥檛 make it to that airport to land.

After being asked by the control tower if she could find a highway, a street that wasn鈥檛 busy, or a park to land on, the pilot replied hesitantly, 鈥淚 am looking.鈥�

In her last transmission she said, 鈥淚鈥檓 landing on a soccer field. I don鈥檛 鈥� there are people though.鈥�

Then silence.

In what some call the Miracle at Monarch, the pilot managed to more or less gently manoeuvre the plane into a corner of the stadium鈥檚 parking lot, beside the grandstand 鈥� all of this 10 kms northeast of Billy Bishop.

No damage to any vehicles in the lot, no one on the plane injured. And surprisingly, no one on the ground touched at all. Whew.

Visiting the site myself the next evening, from what I could see, most of the damage was to a fence at a corner of the stadium, just beyond a portion of a four-lane running track that encircles the soccer field. The plane had already been removed by the time I鈥檇 arrived.

The miracle part pertains to what could have gone wrong here.

The pilot avoided the large soccer field 鈥� live images on the night of the crash showed ultimate Frisbee league players using the field with the plane, nose down, in the background.

鈥淭he game continues,鈥� quipped 海角社区官网Fire Chief Jim Jessop, who told reporters at the scene that evening he was happy to report no injuries. The Transportation Safety Board confirmed engine failure.

The pilot also avoided the GO Train line, mere feet away. There鈥檚 the adjacent high school, Monarch Park Collegiate Institute, a large park frequented by dog walkers. There鈥檚 the nearby Monarch Park outdoor swimming pool, which wasn鈥檛 in use at the time, but likely could have been, had the crash occurred earlier in the summer.

I find the story particularly relevant because I was watching a soccer practice at a nearby sports field about two hours before the crash. And last Saturday I attended a match at Monarch soccer field; the place packed with players and spectators, the parking lot overflowing.

So many what ifs and close calls.

In an interview, 海角社区官网city Coun. Paula Fletcher told me she鈥檚 quite relieved a crisis was averted.

鈥淚t could have been so terrible. To have the skill to put that plane down, to tuck it in between the train tracks and the field is quite something,鈥� she said.

She likened the pilot鈥檚 feat to two famous forced landing incidents 鈥� the landing of the Air Canada Boeing flight in Gimli, Man. in 1983 and the “Miracle on the Hudson鈥� landing, in 2009 where a US Airways pilot was forced to safely glide his plane to a stop on the Hudson River in New York.

, the pilot safely landed at the Gimli racetrack 鈥� a decommissioned Air Force base 鈥� gliding for several minutes after the plane ran out of fuel. No one died.

In the Hudson River incident, a bird strike triggered engine failure and the subsequent emergency landing. Amazingly, all 155 people on board were rescued, with no fatalities. The case was made into a Hollywood movie, based on the heroics of the pilot, Captain Chesley 鈥淪ully鈥� Sullenberger.

But this week鈥檚 near-tragedy at Monarch also had me thinking about fate, and the recent accident in Portugal, where, sadly, there was no miracle ending. The crash of another kind of vehicle, a funicular, earlier this month in Lisbon, of two Canadians, 16 people in total, as well as injuring others.

The popular tourist vehicle, which carries passengers up and down a steep hill, collided into a building on a main boulevard in the centre of the capital city. Investigators have concluded that a thick steel cable that the car ran on snapped, causing the driver to lose control, despite his feverish attempts to stop the car.

Senior 海角社区官网Star journalist Allan Woods tracked down Hind Iguernane of east-end Ottawa, whose husband, Aziz Benharref, also of Ottawa, died in the crash.

鈥淲e took photos. We didn鈥檛 even plan to go on it. But then he said to me, 鈥楥ome on, it鈥檚 part of the experience. You can do it,鈥欌�� Iguernane told the Star.

鈥淗e knows that I鈥檓 not that courageous, but he reassured me that it was not a big deal, that it went really slow,鈥� she said.

The married couple were the last ones to climb on board that ill-fated vehicle. Where he chose to sit, he died, where she sat, she survived.

鈥淪ometimes I get this guilty feeling,鈥� Iguernane said.

鈥淚 tell myself that if he had been in my place, it would have been different.鈥�

For the surviving spouse, so many what ifs.