By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
By JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER
Associated Press
HONOLULU — The pilot of the plane that crashed off Molokai said he broadcast a mayday call once he realized he wouldn’t be able to sustain a glide long enough to reach land after his engine lost power.
The single-engine plane had just taken off from Kalaupapa last week when he heard a loud bang, pilot Clyde Kawasaki told reporters Wednesday. He described seeing red and yellow lights on the panel and having to quickly go into action.
“I knew I had to head for land,” he said. But he had to abandon that plan: “I said we’re gonna go for a swim.”
Hawaii Health Director Loretta Fuddy was a passenger on the flight. She was the only fatality.
After Kawasaki broadcast the mayday call and his plane emitted an emergency locator transmitter, the airport tower operator made contact with another plane in the area. That plane’s pilot guided rescuers to the nine people he spotted floating in the sea one-half mile from shore.
Josh Lang, a helicopter pilot who was flying his private plane to Maui with his girlfriend, said it was “pure luck” they were in the area.
“It looked like most people were waving and it looked like they were OK,” Lang said.
His girlfriend, Jaimee Thompson, said they felt obligated to stay until help arrived, to give the people in the water hope they would be rescued.
Kawasaki said he drew on his experience as a glider pilot to land the plane on its belly in the rough waters.
When he landed, he saw the cockpit covered with blood — his from hitting his head on the panel. Water was waist-high in the plane as he instructed the passengers to put on their life jackets and get out. He quickly handed his life jacket to a passenger.
“There was one left and I gave it away,” he said. “There was no time to get another one.”
When he grew weary of treading without a preserver in the water, he clung to a passenger.
In the water, he looked at his watch. It was 4 p.m. He remembered noting their on-time departure was 3:15 p.m.
The last time he saw Fuddy, she seemed fine, he said.
“It was devastating to say the least,” he said of learning later she died. “I could not understand how that could have happened. … everybody seemed fine when we got out of the airplane.”
Kawasaki, a pilot since he was 14, said he always aspired to end his career without having damaged a plane or injuring a person.
“I feel really, really bad,” he said. “It hurts.”
He said he spoke with Fuddy’s family when her body was returned to Honolulu earlier this week, but he declined to discuss the conversation.