1 missing, 46 safe after lagoon crash
WELLINGTON, New Zealand — The airline operating a flight that crashed into a Pacific lagoon on Friday in Micronesia says that one man is missing, after earlier saying that all 47 passengers and crew had safely evacuated the sinking plane.
Air Niugini said in a release that as of Saturday afternoon, it was unable to account for a male passenger. The airline said it was working with local authorities, hospitals and investigators to try to find the man.
The airline did not immediately offer any other details about the passenger, such as his age or nationality.
Local boats helped rescue the other passengers and crew after the plane hit the water while trying to land at the Chuuk Island airport. Officials had said earlier that seven people had been taken to a hospital.
A passenger on the plane said flight attendants were panicking and he saw water pouring through a hole in the side of the plane before he was able to escape.
Passenger Bill Jaynes said the Air Niugini plane came in very low.
“I thought we landed hard,” he said. “Until I looked over and saw a hole in the side of the plane and water was coming in. And I thought, well, this is not the way it’s supposed to happen.”
Jaynes said those aboard managed to wade through waist-deep water to the emergency exits on the sinking plane.
He said the flight attendants were yelling, and that he suffered a minor head injury. He said he called his wife, who started crying.
“I was really impressed with the locals who immediately started coming out in boats,” he said in an interview with a missionary, Matthew Colson, that was posted online and shared with the Associated Press.
“One would think that they might be afraid to approach a plane that’s just crashed.”
The sequence of events remains unclear. The airline said the plane landed short of the runway. However, Jaynes said the only scenario he can imagine is that it hit the end of the runway and continued into the Chuuk lagoon.
The U.S. Navy said sailors working nearby on a wharf also helped in the rescue by using an inflatable boat to shuttle people ashore before the plane sank in about 100 feet of water.
The striking images of people being rescued from the half-submerged plane were reminiscent of the 2009 crash landing in New York City known as the “Miracle on the Hudson.”