Pilot Swims To Shore After Crashing Plane In Atlantic Ocean
A pilot that crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday swam to shore with no injuries, DelmarvaNow reported.
The incident occurred in Ocean City, Maryland, a beach town about 150 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. The plane hit the water at around 6:15 p.m. on Tuesday, per Business Insider.
Maryland police say that no one was injured in the incident, per DelmarvaNow.
The pilot, 23-year-old Trevor Deihl of Reedville, Virginia, said he took off from an airport in Reedville and had intended to land the aircraft at Ocean City Airport in Maryland, per Business Insider. Ocean City, Maryland is about a 230-mile drive from Reedville, and is located across Chesapeake Bay.
Deihl said he noticed that the plane was experiencing engine trouble, so he decided to land the 1981 Cessna 172 RG into the ocean, per DelmarvaNow. After landing, Deihl exited the aircraft that landed about a quarter-mile from the shore and swam to safety, per witnesses at the scene.
A spokesperson for the Ocean City Police Department confirmed the Tuesday evening crash to DelmarvaNow, and said that the plane came down near 21st Street in Ocean City. The spokesperson said there was only one person in the aircraft at the time of the crash – the pilot – and that emergency medical services were evaluating him for any injuries.
We are still working on details, but there’s been an apparent plane crash on the beach at 25th Street in #OceanCity, #Maryland. These photos are courtesy of Graysen Levy of Baltimore. Preliminary reports are that no one was hurt. @wbalradio pic.twitter.com/POx8JmWOQ5
— Phil Yacuboski (@WBALPhil) July 16, 2019
Beachgoers noticed that the plane was flying close to the the ground and captured the moment that it landed in the ocean on video, with one sharing the video on Twitter.
“I happened to look up and I saw the plane coming right directly over top of us, and I said to my husband, ‘Look at that! That’s strange! It’s very close,'” Charlotte Higdon, a witness who was on the beach at the time of the plane crash, told the Baltimore, Maryland CBS affiliate. “The engine was making a sputtering noise and there was smoke coming out of the one side of it.”
Some tourists told local media that they were worried that the plane was going to crash land on the beach and potentially injure families that were unable to get out of its way.
Several witnesses took to social media to share pictures and video from the Tuesday night plane crash. One user tweeted that the plane crash happened just outside his hotel.
According to CBS Baltimore, police are still investigating the cause of the crash landing, though they said it appeared there were mechanical issues with the aircraft.
