911! Plane down in da lake! Yeah, it's a seaplane.

[mikea]

A plane splashed down on Lake Michigan early Wednesday morning, prompting a passerby to call 911 and touching off an emergency rescue operation. But before rescuers responded, the plane took off.
...

because the airspace there is uncontrolled, the landing was not illegal, said Elizabeth Cory, FAA spokeswoman.

Steve Whitney, president of Friends of Meigs Field and a sea plane pilot, said lake landings are rare because the water is too choppy. When Meigs was open, the pilot would have contacted air traffic controllers there, he said.

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-sealanding21.html

Got that right, Steve! Even with the Meigs tower being there they have no say over landing in the lake. As we keep telling them, with the tower the airspace is controlled so it was safer when Meigs was around.

Steve Whitney is a seaplane pilot? Maybe. He's a renter. I was there when he landed on the lake as a passenger.

During a Meigs Open House a few years back a Grumman Albatross amphibian visited. The seaplane pilot took Steve and some reporters for ride. He did a fly by and then told the Meigs tower he was going to land in the lake. The controller said he can't clear a plane to land in the lake. The pilot is on his own.

It was a beautiful day and the lake was chockablock with sailboats.

As we can expect, Steve said it was very cool landing out there.

 

[Anthony]

This happened on the Delaware River. A Lake Amphib landed in the river and everyone got nervous, police, fire dept., news media everywhere. The plane landed at the Philadelphia Seaplane Base (9N2) which has been in continous operation since 1913. I saw a clip on the TV news of the Lake amphib doing a water taxi. The initial report was that it "crashed" in the river. Gee, it really crashes good if it can still maneuver up to the fuel pumps. Sigh.

 

[Skip Miller]

A few years ago an airplane without floats did a touch and go in the Hudson River. The pilot was a New York State employee working for a fish and game program, and routinely flew very low over rivers and lakes to conduct his business. I don't know what he did or how it could be successful, but that was the story. Anyhow someone in a car on the GW Bridge saw the plane settle to the water and then lost sight of the plane in the resulting spray, and did not see it fly away. There was a 911 call and a lot of effort to rescue the lost plane and pilot who wasn't there and wasn't aware of the hysterical effort.

-Skip

 

[mikea]

The laugh in this case is because the tower at Meigs is gone, the FAA will have to do some serious detective work to even identify the plane. They'll have to look for a radar track and coordinate times and hope he talked to ATC somewhere, sometime.

Thanks for making us safe, Mare.