“Two or three minutes went by and I thought, he’s not coming out.”
Quick action by a father and son helped a pilot get to shore safely after his plane crashed in a Northern Michigan lake.
Kevin Malone was the only one in the seaplane.
He was trying to land on Cedar Lake in Leelanau County when his plane flipped into the water.
9&10’s Caroline Powers has been following the incident closely.
The plane’s pilot Kevin Malone says he was going out for a nice early morning flight.
But when he tried to land here on Cedar Lake, the seaplane crashed.
Thankfully Kevin wasn’t hurt and there were people nearby to help.
“Very fortunate that we got help to him as quick as we could because that water is cold,” Noel Flohe said
Noel Flohe says he was driving home from the grocery store when he saw Kevin Malone’s yellow husky seaplane going in for a landing on Cedar Lake.
“I thought I’d pull into the public landing to see it land and when I got here he already has his nose in the water. Pontoons were up, tail fins were up and the wings were up,” Noah said.
Kevin Malone’s plane crashed and flipped in the water.
Noel called 911 while Reverend Christopher Jarvis and his dad Don jumped in their row boat.
“The first thing that we were concerned with was he didn’t come out of the cabin right away. And whether he was hurt, unconscious or whatever that would have been very serious. And so we were really worried about that. But once we saw him climb out as the plane was actually sinking, he got on top of it with a life jacket on. We could see that he was conscious and seemed to be alert,” Don Jarvis said.
Crews from the Leelanau County Sheriff’s office, the regional dive team, 45 North Aviation and Team Elmer’s worked to pull the plane from the lake.
Kevin says he’s thankful to walk away without a scratch.
“I was very happy to have help. I was cold so they took me into an ambulance right away and gave me warm blankets and some chemical hot packets,” Kevin said.
The pilot says the landing gear was down when he went to land on the water.
He’s working to figure out why, the Leelanau County sheriff says that could contribute to the accident.
No fuel from the plane leaked into the lake.
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