SEATTLE (AP) — A seaplane carrying 11 people crashed near an island tourist destination north of Seattle and caught on fire, prompting a quick, successful rescue by multiple agencies via boat and air to get injured passengers and the pilot to hospitals.
Videos posted on social media show the aircraft banking to one side as it flies low over the water near some boats close to shore. The plane makes a hard landing, first on one float, then briefly skips into the air before hitting the rocky coast. The person taking the video gasps as a crunching sound is heard when the plane crashes just out of sight.
Witnesses rushed to help. People can be seen getting out of the plane as smoke rises before bright orange flames engulf the fuselage, which came to rest partially submerged against a large rock.
“An Urgent Marine Information Broadcast was issued to mariners in the area, and numerous good Samaritan vessels responded to assist,” the U.S. Coast Guard said Friday in a statement about the crash, which happened at about 5:20 p.m. Thursday.
The crash, which involved a pilot and 10 passengers, happened more than two weeks after a seaplane carrying eight people made a rough landing in New York City’s East River, causing minor injuries. In 2022, federal regulators ordered seaplanes to be inspected following a deadly crash in the waters of Puget Sound northwest of Seattle.
Thursday's crash happened in Shallow Bay near Sucia Island in the northern San Juan Islands. The archipelago between Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia, is a popular summer vacation spot known for its ferries, whale watching and hiking.
“We are grateful that everyone aboard has been accounted for,” Kenmore Air CEO David Gudgel said in a statement. He said the company canceled all scheduled flights for Friday and that Kenmore was cooperating with investigators.
The statement said “we will not speculate regarding the cause of the accident.” The Federal Aviation Administration said it would investigate.
The seaplane had taken off from Lake Union in Seattle and was headed to Roche Harbor Seaplane Base on San Juan Island, the airline and FAA confirmed. Shallow Bay, described as an anchorage near Sucia Island, is bounded by beaches about 80 miles (128 kilometers) north of Seattle.
The plane was described as a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter aircraft, a single-engined short take-off and landing aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada.
The FAA airworthiness directive at the time of the 2022 seaplane crash required that operators of all the DHC-3 Otter seaplanes in the United States — 63 of about 160 operating worldwide — examine the stabilizer to confirm the condition of an actuator piece, The Seattle Times reported. That piece was missing from the Friday Harbor Seaplanes aircraft that crashed into the waters near Whidbey Island, killing 10 people, the newspaper reported.
Operators had to confirm that the stabilizer actuator lock ring is correctly installed and report back to the FAA by Dec. 19, according to the directive. The order does not ground the aircraft.
Kenmore Air, the largest Otter operator on Puget Sound, had said its aircraft have passed inspection.
In 2023, the National Transportation Safety Board said that a single component of a critical flight control system, an actuator, failed, causing an unrecoverable, near-vertical descent into the water.
