One person is dead after the crash of a stolen airplane on Lansdowne St. near High St.

The plane, a Piper PA-38-112 Tomahawk, crashed at about 1:20 a.m. Friday.

"The plane was stolen from a rural airport in the GTA sometime last evening," said city police Insp. Lynne Buehler. The person flying it was a man in his 20s; he was pronounced dead at the scene after the crash.

His name will not be released, Buehler told local and Toronto media at the police station during a press conference Friday morning.

She said she had no information on whether the man was an experienced pilot.

"From all indications, it appears he was trying to land the plane," Buehler said.

Trent Gervais, the manager of the Peterborough Airport, was called to the scene at about 1:30 a.m. to try to help investigators determine what had happened.



He said that there had been fuel in the plane - it hadn't run out of gas.



He also said it looked to him as though the plane had some serious engine trouble and the pilot attempted to use Lansdowne Street as an emergency landing strip, coming in from the east.



"He was clearly landing on the road - it wasn't as though the plane had fallen from the sky," Gervais said.

Gervais said the pilot couldn't have been inexperienced to get the plane from Markham to Peterborough.

"Absolutely, he had some kind of training," he said.

He said the wreckage of the plane was taken to Peterborough Airport for further police investigation.

Buehler said York Region police are investigating the theft of the plane. She declined to answer questions about the investigation, including the airport from which the plane was taken, although she said it wasn't Buttonville. It was a rural airport unstaffed at night, she said.

Just before 3 a.m. on Friday, Peterborough Police contacted York Regional Police to say that the plane that crashed had been registered to an owner in Newmarket.

The owner, Donald Peck of Newmarket, was contacted by York Regional Police.

That’s how police knew the plane had been stolen: They found the owner, who hadn’t taken his plane off the ground.

“And he had no knowledge of where the plane was,” said Const. Laura Nicolle of York Regional Police.

York Regional Police will be working closely with Peterborough Police Service as well as Transport Canada on the investigation, Buehler said.

Peterborough Fire Services and paramedics responded to the crash early Friday and took part in the rescue effort.

Buehler said the man's body was flown to Toronto for a post-mortem that was to be carried out Friday.

The Transportation Safety Board will assist in determining the cause of the crash. Buehler said city police have been investigating by talking to witnesses and potential witnesses.

The crash occurred close to a 24-hour Shoppers Drug Mart location.

Lansdowne St. was closed between Monaghan and Erskine streets for much of the morning.

The Piper is a two-seater used primarily for training and personal use. It's equipped with fixed tricycle-style landing gear.