Critical injuries in plane crash on Highway 401 near Cornwall, Ont.

Two occupants of a small plane were seriously injured when it crashed into the Highway 401 median near Cornwall, Ont. Monday night.

Officials said the Cessna 150 was attempting an emergency landing on the highway west of the Ontario-Quebec border, near Lancaster, Ont. Police said the plane crashed into the highway's centre median in front of the Bainesville ONRoute.

A 26-year-old man was taken to hospital by air ambulance in life-threatening condition, OPP acting Sgt. Erin Cranton said. The other occupant of the plane, a 39-year-old man, was taken to hospital with serious injuries.

Cranton said police were called to the scene just before 8:15 p.m. Monday. The plane took off from the Salaberry-de-Valleyfield Airport in Quebec, on the south bank of the St. Lawrence River about 17 kilometres east of where the crash happened.

The federal Transportation Safety Board is helping with the investigation and has deployed a team of investigators to the scene. Isabelle Langevin, the TSB's director of regional operations for Quebec, said the plane had a problem in the air.

"They attemped to do an emergency landing on the 401," she said. "While lining up to land on the highway they struck a power line that crosses the highway south to north at that particular spot and following that collision, the aircraft collided with the ground."

The highway was closed for about eight hours for the crash. It reopened around 4:15 a.m. Tuesday.

The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre based in Trenton, Ont. is also helping with the investigation.

Hydro crews were also on site because some wires were struck.

#SDGOPP, ROAD CLOSURE 401 westbound and eastbound from Quebec border to marker 825 @SouthGlengarry for an airplane crash involving a Cessna 150, occupants transported to hospital in critical condition, JRCC & Transport Safety Board assisting with investigation. ^sd pic.twitter.com/WF30iNn9cj

— OPP East Region (@OPP_ER) December 6, 2022

Images from the scene showed emergency crews, hydro vehicles and tow trucks assembled at the Bainsville ONRoute, on the north side of Highway 401.

A Cessna 150 is a small two-seater, single-engine plane. It was produced for about 20 years from the late 1950s to the late 1970s.

Jean-Yves Chevalier, a local pilot who has been flying for more than two decades, said he thinks the flight was a training flight, for which Cessnas are commonly used.

"Normally you are never lower than 1,000 feet over populated areas and 500 feet over wild areas," he said. "For them to be this low, they had to be landing for some mechanical reason."

He said the Cessnas are generally "very, very easy to fly," which is why they are used for training. The plane was right near Lancaster Airpark, a small landing strip, but since it's not lit at night they would not have been able to use it.

"They were expecting a normal emergency landing," Chevalier said. "They would not have expected to hit wires. ... When you hit wires, usually the airplane will flip and then it's just dropping.

"I just hope they recover soon."