18-year-old pilot makes emergency landing on Ocean City bridge
Last edited Mon Jul 19, 2021, 06:25 PM - Edit history (1)
Source: Philly Voice
A small plane pulling a banner at the Jersey Shore made an emergency landing Monday afternoon on the Ninth Street Bridge in Ocean City. No one was injured, and no damage was done when the plane landed in the road between Ocean City and Somers Point, according to Officer Doug Bergen of the Ocean City Police Department. Emergency crews responded to the scene just after 12:30 p.m.
The pilot, Landon Lucas, told authorities that the plane began having engine trouble while he was flying near Steel Pier in Atlantic City. The 18-year-old, who was flying for Paramount Air Service, released the plane's banner into the ocean. He was headed toward Ocean City Municipal Airport when he noticed a gap in traffic on the westbound lanes of the Route 52 causeway, Bergen said.
After the plane's unorthodox but smooth landing, crews worked to remove its wings and will tow it away, police said. An investigation into the cause of the emergency landing is underway.
As of 2 p.m., both bridge lanes into Ocean City had reopened to traffic, and a single outbound lane was open.
Read more: https://www.phillyvoice.com/ocean-city-plane-emergency-landing-bridge-new-jersey/
This is the Ocean City in New Jersey. Who says 18 year olds can't be responsible!
Link to tweet
TEXT
@ItsJoeyRichard
Plane crash on Ocean City, New Jersey bridge. @6abc @CBSPhilly @FOX29philly #oceancity #nj
12:54 PM · Jul 19, 2021
= new reply since forum marked as read
Always aim for the center of the runway.
sense landing on the bridge instead of risking landing in the water. 
One of the students bought a used Piper Cub real cheap, re-covered the wings and did a lot of
work on it, finally getting it certified. He got his pilot's license and last I heard (years ago) he flew it
up and down the Columbia River Gorge (east of Portland, Oregon).
I tried a few flight lessons but found out I wasn't cut out for that. It's good to learn these things!
Good landing and good judgement.
that Jersey drivers think they have a single front nose wheel on their cars and make sure they drive directly down the center of the dashed line separating 2 lanes on a street. This must be why. 
I once landed right in the middle of I-95 when my engine seized up. It's amazing how focused you can get when the engine get really quiet. 
Little grass strip in Western Connecticut ,Owned by four airline pilots. 3 commercial and one private jet jock. Great bunch of guys. Our tow pilot was a secretary who worked for Pan Am during the week and did tow's on the weekends... (I'm dating myself). She flew that little Supercub like a sports car.. 2000 feet and release. She would sprial down in an almost spin, pull out and drop it in as light as a feather.
More fun than a guy should have with his pants up..
m
Or maybe he is just an old-looking 18-year-old. Either way, it was a good solution to a complex problem that I sure as heck wouldn't have wanted to be in! 
I did a 400% zoom of this pic in my browser and if you do a closeup of his face (despite the receding hair line), you can see he is an "older" teen-looking guy in the face - just a big boy is all. He's tall.
(used to call that type "corn fed" )
(article was from a couple years ago)
By BRIAN IANIERI Staff Writer Aug 9, 2010 Updated Jun 20, 2019
By BRIAN IANIERI Staff Writer
MIDDLE TOWNSHIP — The flight attire is shorts and T-shirts, with sunglasses for when the small airplane rises quickly to the sky from takeoff at Paramount Air Service’s grass runway. Stefan Stercula, 21, spends mornings in the hangar doing a once-over inspection of the steel-framed, lightweight plane with fabric cover and no doors. This is his 150-horsepower office for the summer as a banner pilot. Flying the airborne advertisements ubiquitous over any beach in southern New Jersey is largely a youth-driven occupation, a summer job in the sky.
The routes can be somewhat monotonous over the course of the summer, tracing towns’ shorelines with messages about Fosters specials, $15 sunset dinners and the occasional marriage proposal. But for the Paramount pilots, many of whom are college students or recent graduates, the positions offer afternoons soaring through the sky and the experience — or flight hours — that may help them land their next job. “This is probably the best way to go for a low-time pilot,” said Stercula, a senior aviation major at Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, who expects to log several hundred hours this summer.
“For a low-time pilot, just getting that many hours is huge because there’s no other place to get it that quickly.” The pay is good: $20 to $30 per hour, based on a pilot’s experience. Most pilots can expect to work between 200 and 400 hours a summer. “I was looking for anything to get around planes,” said Stercula, of West Chester, Pa., whose family has a summer home in Stone Harbor. This is Stercula’s second year as a banner pilot.
Pilots come here from across the country, from Indiana to Oregon and locally. Paramount is the only banner plane company based out of Cape May County, although two national companies — Van Wagner Outdoor Advertising and High Exposure Aerial Advertising — fly along the New Jersey shore. Hours are resume-boosters to pilots. The more flight experience they log in the cockpit, the better their job prospects look to future employers. Many young pilots have aspirations of working for private charter companies or airlines. After the summer, Sean Van Hatten, 20, of Redmond, Ore., who has an associate’s degree in aviation, is considering going to Alaska to find pilot work.
(snip)
More: https://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/young-pilots-log-hours-build-resumes-flying-banner-planes-in-southern-new-jersey/article_d4e65e3e-a373-11df-9f2d-001cc4c03286.html
I didn't realize they fly low and grab the banner with a hook and continue on up with it. I just assumed they laid the banner on a runway somewhere and then took off with it like a kite.
Apparently "500 hours" is the general threshold and the above link gave some examples of types of positions someone with less than 500 hours could do to gain hours.
So if you have young college students doing this - they could work 20 hours/week for 12 weeks (i.e., 3 months during the summer) and get 240 hours flight time.
I don't know how long those banner planes are up in the air (or can stay in the air before needing to refuel - might be dependent on the model of plane) for each run, but I did a quick search and saw that companies will charge for distance/time, apparently with 1 - 3 hour flight times being offered (which will then determine the cost for the ad).
Whole 'nother world for me!
This guy had that mindset too - "fear" would make things worse. You just do it. Of course it helps to be trained (and practice) the basics and have that kick in.
because he should be commended also to help this young man think through the issue at hand and to take the situation and not panic and do it.....and he walked away and he did not damage the plane.....that is a pilot in command of the situation.....
Article - https://pressofatlanticcity.com/news/breaking/young-pilots-log-hours-build-resumes-flying-banner-planes-in-southern-new-jersey/article_d4e65e3e-a373-11df-9f2d-001cc4c03286.html
They basically recruit young pilots to train and the job also obviously gives them the opportunity to gain flight hours.
The older gentleman in the foreground in the below pic is the founder of the company -
when going down the shore (as they say), it was always cool to see those planes. Over the years, I have seen a few banner planes flying over Philly too. 
But I never knew the mechanics of how those planes actually hook the banner onto the rear of the plane! It's almost the same principle as how fighter jets land on aircraft carriers - using some vertical cable with a hook on the rear of the plane that snags a horizontal cable on the ground or deck.
Can't believe I was watching that in one stream and watching the polar opposite - the Blue Origin about to launch in another stream.
