Photo: Google Maps
One person is dead and nine people are missing after a float plane crashed in Washington state’s Puget Sound on Sunday, the US Coast Guard said.
The agency said via Twitter that the plane was flying from Friday Harbor, a popular tourist destination in the San Juan Islands, to Renton, Washington. The Coast Guard previously said the plane was en route to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
The crash, reported at 3:11 p.m. Sunday, happened in Mutiny Bay, off Whidbey Island, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Seattle.
The Coast Guard said one body had been recovered and nine people were still missing.
The Coast Guard said four Coast Guard vessels, a rescue helicopter and an aircraft were involved in the search, along with first responders from local rescue and law enforcement agencies.
The cause of the crash is unknown, authorities said.
The Seattle Times reports that the National Transportation Safety Board says the plane was a de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Turbine Otter. The plane is single-engine, propeller.
Floatplanes, planes that have pontoons that allow them to land on water, are a common sight around Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. There are numerous daily flights between the Seattle area and the San Juan Islands, a picturesque archipelago northwest of Seattle that attracts tourists from around the world.
The plane, which also flies between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, frequently flies through Seattle and lands in a lake not far from the city’s iconic Space Needle.
Renton, where authorities say Sunday’s flight took off, is at the southern end of Lake Washington about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Seattle.
In May 2019, six people were killed in a mid-air collision between two Alaskan sightseeing planes. The Ketchikan-based floatplanes carrying passengers from the same cruise ship, the Royal Princess, were returning from tours of the Misty Fjords National Monument.
Add Comment