All four onboard the Piper PA-22 aircraft were unharmed, rescued by Katmai rangers on Sunday afternoon.
Three passengers and a pilot were rescued unharmed from a PA-22 float plane that flipped in Naknek Lake around 12:30 Sunday afternoon.
Audio transcript:
The Piper was piloted by Mark Romo of Aleknagik.
Katmai Chief Ranger Tom Betts says the plane landed on rough waters with strong winds from the east.
“Generally on an east wind day they’ll land over on Brooks side, so the plane came in and actually went ahead and landed on Naknek side, got it on the water and stable, and unfortunately during the time that he was trying to sail to shore, ended up flipping the airplane.”
Betts reports the three passengers and pilot were all wearing life vests, and got to the floats. Luckily, he says, rangers had already launched a vessel for another search and rescue operation, so they were able to respond quickly.
"The stars were aligned because we had everything in place immediately to go get them. So they didn’t spend much time in the water. We had them off the floats between 10 and 15 minutes.”
The float plane is now anchored in the lake, and Betts says the pilot is working with his insurance company to make a plan to recover it.
The other search and rescue mission successfully rescued an overdue party of 3 on Sunday evening.
Contact the author at hannah@kdlg.org.