Photo: CTV

The owner of an amphibious ultralight that crash-landed on Highway 91 in the Lower Mainland this week was warned by a Surrey air park about the safety of the aircraft.

Paul Deane-Freeman was flying over White Rock during rush hour Wednesday evening when he lost power at 1,200 feet. After making a mayday call, he made a split-second decision to land on the busy highway. Amazingly, no cars were hit.

The plane barely cleared treetops and clipped a sign as it landed. Deane-Freeman suffered a fracture to his lower back in the incident.

“I feel pretty lucky, considering that I got the plane as far as I did ... I stalled it out trying to get over the trees,” the pilot told CTV.

“I thought ‘oh no, not here.’ This is the worst place for this to happen,” he said. “I was thinking about the cars. I didn’t want to get run over by a semi-truck or get into a head-on collision.”

But the owner of King George Aviation says the plane should not have been in the air.

Arnold Klappe says he sent a letter to Deane-Freeman highlighting the extreme risk of a serious accident because recommended repairs to the plane had not been done.

"It needed new pistons, radiator system, The cooling system needed to be fixed properly, which it hadn't been," Klappe told CTV. 

The park suspended his maintenance and services until it was satisfied and the aircraft deemed safe.

Deane-Freeman says he had been flying the plane for the last four months.

Despite the crash, he says he plans to fly again as soon as it's repaired.

– with files from CTV Vancouver