Fore! Banner Plane Makes Emergency Landing on 9th Hole

For most golfers, the most dangerous thing they dodge on the course are flying expletives.

A foursome playing the Greynolds Park Golf Course in North Miami Beach Saturday afternoon were buzzed by a banner plane making an emergency landing on the 9th hole.

Pilot Annette Simon, 35, of Avial Banners, Inc., was on her way back to the airport from towing an ad over South Beach when her yellow Piper Pawny P-8 began to shake.

She ejected her banner safely over a residential area four or five blocks away and then looked for a place to land.

“I knew there was a problem when I was flying over the golf course,” she said. “There was a stuttering noise and I knew I had to put the plane down. I circled and looked for the best spot and ended up coming down near the 9th [fairway].”

Simon narrowly avoided the carting foursome (causing “flustered” golfer Jake Russo to miss a putt), threading her way onto the course and making what witnesses called a “perfect” landing.

“I think what stands out the most about this is the outstanding job the pilot did putting the plane down in this fashion,” Miami-Dade Fire Department Battalion Chief Hugh Bruder said. “There could have been a lot of damage to properties, but that didn’t happen.”

Bob Benyo, the owner of Avial Banners, was given permission from the Federal Aviation Administration to inspect the plane himself. After ice on the carburetor melted, one of the company’s pilots flew the plane off the course and back to its hanger at North Perry Airport in Pembroke Pines.