Planes landing on Minneapolis lake a no-no

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 12 (UPI) -- Two men were ticketed this week for piloting their small airplanes onto Minneapolis's frozen Lake Calhoun to meet for lunch.

Landing on an ice-covered lake is not a problem for many of Minnesota's nearly 12,000 lakes. But Lake Calhoun, located in the heart of Minnesota's largest city, is off-limits without prior city permission.

But Hans Meyer of Burnsville and Mike Doherty of Le Seur didn't now that when they landed their single-engine planes -- an Aeronca 7AC and a Champion 7FC -- there Monday afternoon and went off for a bite to eat, they found themselves getting parking tickets along with their bill of fare, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported Tuesday.

They also had to cool their heels until getting federal clearance for takeoff, the newspaper said. Park Police Capt. Robert Goodsell said the pilots were "cooperative" and "contrite."

They "didn't know we had an ordinance against that," Goodsell said. "They were very apologetic."

Meyer said he and Doherty had looked at federal and state regulations and the Minneapolis city Web site and found nothing warning them against the urban landing.

"It was a beautiful winter day, and we wanted to see downtown," Meyer said. "It was only until we came back from lunch that we found the police weren't on board with it."