Video Story
Watch VideoBeulah man crash lands plane in icy Alaska waters
Story By: Ryan Wilson
Source: KOAA
Published Thu Aug 21, 2008, 08:35 PM MDT
Updated Thu Aug 21, 2008, 09:34 PM MDT
"We're looking at my Turbo Centurion sitting at the bottom of 35 feet of water," Dr. Davis explained, while holding photos of his fully submerged plane. He says he wasn't too worried when his plane ran out of gas on the flight to Ketchikan, but his brother, 58-year-old Glen Davis, was a little more concerned, that this fishing trip would turn out to be their last.
"As the engine quit and we were descending at about 2-thousand feet above the water and we have no engine, so we're going to go into the water, and he asked me what was going to happen and I said, you're going to get cold and you're going to get wet. But you're not going to get killed," Davis said.
Davis told the airport he wasn't going to make it, and kept his landing gear up as he neared the water.
"I knew I had to get near land because the water's about 48 degrees near Ketchikan," he said.
It turned out to be a smooth landing, and there's very little damage to the plane, aside from dents on the very tip of the plane, called the spinner, which rammed nose first into the bottom of the ocean. The Davis brothers got out, and slid into the water, for a 50 foot swim to land. A kelp bed blocked their way, but help was nearby.
"We couldn't quite get to the shore, but then the float plane picked us up, and we crawled into the float plane," Davis said.
After 12 minutes in the water, both men were cold, but unhurt. The Ketchikan Fire Department used the plane for training, after taking care of Robert and Glen. And this is pretty incredible; the plane should fly again after it goes to a airplane mechanics school for repairs.
"It does my heart real good, but I'm sad that I'll never fly it again. Oh I loved that airplane, it was great to go back and forth to pilot, and to travel around the country in it," Davis said.
Dr. Davis is no stranger to adventure. He's hunted around the world, and if you walk into his office, you'll see many of his trophies, including a grizzly bear and a leopard. And he says he'll definitely fly again.
