A small plane that landed unexpectedly in the ocean Tuesday afternoon was back on land Thursday.
Crews fished the twin-engine Cessna 337 out of Keehi Lagoon with little difficulty. Its owner, Mark Jones of Moore Air, isn’t sure whether the aircraft can be saved.
“I’m told that salt water is deadly to airplanes, so that’s where we stand right now,” he said.
Officials say the pilot, a 68-year-old man from Australia, took off from Honolulu International Airport, and was unable to get the landing gear down.
Jones says he was in contact with the man throughout the incident.
“The tower had him on a special frequency and I was relaying messages to him,” he said. “We were talking about the pros and cons of landing on the ground and then the water, then we were running the checklist multiple times to see if we could accomplish anything else out of the extra safety systems to bring the gear down.”
The plane was held over the airport for two hours to burn fuel, before the pilot executed a water landing on a seaplane runway. He was not hurt.
The plane’s former owner, David Gray, told KHON2 the pilot is already back in the air.
“He has the attitude if you fall of the horse, you get right back on again, so he’s been out taking a flight with an instructor since about 8 o’clock this morning,” Gray said.
Story and photos: http://khon2.com
Date: 02-FEB-16
Time: 22:27:00Z
Regis#: N22DG
Aircraft Make: CESSNA
Aircraft Model: 337
Event Type: Incident
Highest Injury: None
Damage: Unknown
Flight Phase: LANDING (LDG)
FAA Flight Standards District Office: FAA Honolulu FSDO-13
City: HONOLULU
State: Hawaii
AIRCRAFT FORCE LANDED IN THE WATERWAY AND SANK, THE 1 PERSON ON BOARD WAS RESCUED BY USCG, HONOLULU, HAWAII
http://registry.faa.gov/N22DG
The call for help came in around 12:15 p.m. from the Lagoon Drive area. Initial reports indicated that the pilot of a twin-engine Cessna 337 was experiencing mechanical problems and planned to ditch the aircraft in nearby Keehi Lagoon.
Hawaii News Now’s camera crews were there as the pilot prepared to land after circling around the lagoon for about two hours burning off fuel.
Authorities said the pilot, who was the only person on board, was unable to get the plane's landing gear down.
A team of emergency crews from the Coast Guard, EMS, and Honolulu Fire Department rushed to assist the pilot, who is uninjured.
Fellow pilots and aviation experts are calling it a textbook landing.
"It was back and forth about whether he should put it down in the water or on the ground in Honolulu. Both options are available here, so pick one and go with it and he made the right decision," said Sean Rita, a pilot who witnessed the water landing.
The 68-year-old pilot from Australia has been flying for more than half of his life. His friends said he has been in emergency landings before, both having to land in the water and on land, and it was because of those experiences they said he chose to land on water.
"They got him out of the airplane probably in less than a minute. And he's perfectly fine, no medical issues, so I can't say it was a bad decision," said friend and owner of the aircraft Mark Jones.
"He's a seasoned pilot and I know the instructor was working with him, and I'm sure they probably discussed some water landing, and that's why this event worked out perfectly and he survived the landing," George Hanzawa, aviation expert and owner of George’s Aviation.
The Cessna sank within seconds. But emergency crews were already in the area waiting for him.
"We have some new jet skis that we're working on training with. We were in the area doing training, having personnel getting proficient with those watercraft, and it just so happen to be in the vicinity when the dispatch came out," said Capt. David Jenkins, spokesman for the Honolulu Fire Department.
The Australian pilot said he was OK and just wanted to go home and be with his wife.
Jones said he is working with the Coast Guard to get the aircraft out of the water as quickly as possible.
It is not known whether the National Transportation Safety Board will launch an investigation.
Story, video and photo gallery: http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com
This makes no sense. You could have me to gear up landing scraped the belly a little and walked away with a plane instead of ditching and losing it in the ocean sounds like he wanted to collect insurance money
ReplyDeleteI agree ...................
ReplyDeleteThis makes no sense. You could have me to gear up landing scraped the belly a little and walked away with a plane instead of ditching and losing it in the ocean sounds like he wanted to collect insurance money.