The Pilots Who Crashed Into The Sea

AS HER TWIN-ENGINE PIPER APACHE SLICED THROUGH the postcard-blue sky 5,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean, 23-year-old pilot Sydnie Uemoto heard the sound—a subtle change in timbre as the engines began to strain and rattle.

 

- Nicholas Hune-brown

Her copilot, 26-year-old Dave McMahon, heard it too. Up to that point, the two-hour flight from Oahu to the island of Hawaii had been uneventful. They were just two young pilots, strangers to each other, looking for flight time and taking a short trip with no passengers. When they heard the sound, shortly after three o’clock, McMahon brought the plane down to 3,500 feet, where the engines seemed to run more smoothly. Then, without warning, the pilots lost power to the right engine. A moment later, the left one went. Sitting in their metal compartment high above the ocean, they heard what every pilot dreads: an eerie quiet. It took them a moment to process the fact that they might crash.

The next few minutes were a blur of activity. As they began to lose altitude, the pilots powered through the items on the emergency checklist—turning on fuel pumps, pushing the throttles to full—which can sometimes restart the engines. Nothing worked. Following their emergency training to a T, McMahon handed the controls to Uemoto and, fighting a rush of warm air, propped open the cockpit door. Now they wouldn’t get trapped inside after the expected marine landing. At about 1,000 feet and falling quickly, Uemoto made their last distress call. “We’re 25 miles northwest of Kona,” she said to air traffic control. “We’re going down.”

Uemoto gripped the controls. In pilot school, they teach you about ditching a plane, but you never actually practice dumping your ride into the ocean. She knew the chances of survival were slim. If she hit the water at too steep an angle, the force of the collision would kill them. If she allowed one wingtip to hit the water first, the plane could cartwheel uncontrollably and wrench the aircraft into pieces.