MONTREAL -- A passenger was killed and pilot injured after a plane towing a banner saying "Will you marry me?" crashed near the Osheaga festival site in Montreal.
Montreal police and firefighters responded after receiving a call reporting the crash around 6 p.m.
“One person is sadly deceased in this event, and a second person is transported to the hospital,” said police spokesperson Veronique Comtois.
The small plane went down in Park Dieppe near Habitat 67, which is next to de la Concorde Bridge that leads to Ile Ste-Helene where the Osheaga Get Together music festival is taking place.
"There was a Cessna 172 that was towing a banner that was involved in an accident," said Transportation Safety Board of Canada (TSB) spokesperson Chris Krepski.
Krepski says the proposal banner, which is believed to have fallen into the St-Lawrence river shortly before the crash, hasn't been found.
The board dispatched investigators to the scene to gather details on the cause of the crash and will be sending the remaining debris to an Ottawa lab to continue testing.
Smoke and fire are shown in Montreal on Saturday Oct. 2, 2021. Montreal police say an investigation is underway after a suspected plane crash on an island near Old Montreal. There was no immediate word on injuries or damage caused by the crash in the Île Sainte-Hélène area of the city. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Giuseppe Valiante
Laurel Scala was walking with her husband in Verdun and saw the plane fly overhead moments before it crashed.
"It seemed like the normal height that a plane like that would fly when it has a banner," said Scala. "We struggled to read what the banner said... It said 'Will you marry me,' and we couldn't make out the Chantal because it was backwards."
The next morning, Scala realized that it was the same plane that she and her husband saw before it went down.
Investigators are still working to determine the exact path of the flight, and whether the pilot sent a distress signal before the crash.
Environmental damage suggests the plane was flying from the north-east. When it touched the ground, it appeared to bounce and spin before coming to a rest.
The plane belonged to Publicite Aerogram, owned by Gian Piero Ciambella, which offers banner advertising by plane.
The flight path shows that the plane took off from the St-Mathieu-de-Laprairie Airport at 5:46 p.m. and the flight data shows that the Cessna was the same one that made an emergency landing on Parc Ave. in 2006.
A Cessna 172 crashed in Dieppe Park in Montreal on Oct. 2, 2021 killing one and injuring another.
BANNER STILL MISSING
Montreal firefighters told CTV News Sunday morning that the banner featuring the proposal hadn't yet been found.
Investigators say the aircraft would have likely been able to release the banner while flying, and that the pilot likely dropped it before the crash.
Safety workers remained on the scene the morning after the crash. Debris remained on the site, protected by a police barricade.
Investigators are preparing to transport the aircraft debris to an Ottawa lab to continue their research.
Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante offered her condolences on social media Saturday, writing that she and her team were "monitoring developements following the crash."
"My thoughts are with the family of the deceased," she wrote.
-- Published with files from CTV's Matt Gilmour and Luca Caruso-Moro
