A seaplane fell out of the sky, hit the water, and caught fire near Sucia Island in Washington's Puget Sound Thursday evening. Eleven people were on board. Somehow, incredibly, all eleven of them are alive to tell the story.
What Actually Happened Out There
According to CBS News, the Kenmore Air flight went down at approximately 5:15 p.m. local time in Shallow Bay, near Sucia Island, which sits in the San Juan Islands north of Seattle. The plane was carrying ten passengers and one pilot.
Kenmore Air released a statement confirming one of its planes "was involved in an accident" and that "everyone aboard has been accounted for." That is, for the record, the most understated description of a plane crash and subsequent fire that has ever been written in the English language.
Video captured by an onlooker named Monica Scott showed the seaplane wobbling at very low altitude before going down and bursting into flames. Watch it if you want your palms to sweat at a clip they haven't sweated since the last time you checked your 401(k).
The Injuries, the Rescues, the Chaos
The San Juan County Sheriff's Office confirmed that everyone on the plane "was rescued from the water." That's the sentence that matters most here, and it genuinely belongs in a miracle column somewhere.
CBS News reports the sheriff's office described "multiple patients with injuries ranging from head injuries to broken bones and lacerations," with one person in critical condition. Three airlift ambulances were dispatched to the scene. The Coast Guard and local emergency personnel also responded, according to Kenmore Air's statement.
One person in critical condition after a seaplane hits the water and catches fire is a staggering outcome. Not a good day, obviously. But relative to the alternative? You do the math.
Kenmore Air and the Route That Went Wrong
Kenmore Air is one of the most established seaplane operators in the Pacific Northwest, running scheduled and charter flights across Puget Sound and the San Juan Islands for decades. These are not obscure bush planes operated out of a gravel lot. This is a well-known regional carrier with a long history.
Shallow Bay near Sucia Island is a common destination for boaters and small aircraft in the region. The San Juan Islands are a popular summer getaway, and seaplane service is a legitimate and frequently-used way to get out there without a ferry or a long drive. Which makes this crash all the more jarring for the people who rely on that route.
At this point, the cause of the crash has not been publicly determined. Federal investigators will get involved, as they always do when a commercial aircraft goes down. That process takes time. What we know right now is that the plane wobbled, fell, burned, and somehow everyone got out.
The Part That Sounds Like a Movie
Monica Scott, the onlooker who filmed the crash, caught footage that should not exist in the category of "things that end well." The plane is visibly wobbling at low altitude. Then it hits. Then it burns. It looks exactly as bad as it sounds.
And yet. Eleven people in the water, eleven people pulled out. Critical injuries, yes. Broken bones, yes. But no fatalities reported, and CBS News confirmed all eleven were accounted for by the time authorities cleared the scene.
There will be a lot of questions about what caused this. Was it mechanical? Weather? Pilot error? Those answers are not available yet and it would be irresponsible to speculate. What is available is the remarkable fact that a plane crash caught on video produced zero body counts.
The Dingo Take
Here's the thing about plane crashes: they are terrifying precisely because the margin between "everyone survives" and "investigators are sifting through wreckage" can be measured in feet and seconds. Eleven people got on a seaplane Thursday afternoon, probably thinking about whatever you think about on a short scenic flight through the San Juan Islands. Dinner, maybe. The view. Whether they packed enough sunscreen. Not this.
The fact that the San Juan County Sheriff's Office is reporting no fatalities after a crash that produced airlift ambulances, Coast Guard response, and video that looks like a disaster movie trailer is, frankly, the most genuinely good news this website has published in recent memory. It doesn't erase the person in critical condition, or the broken bones, or the trauma that eleven people are going to be processing for a long time. But it beats the alternative by an almost incomprehensible margin.
Federal investigators will spend months figuring out what went wrong and why. Kenmore Air will have a very hard few weeks. The NTSB does not move quickly, and they should not. What happened out there in Shallow Bay deserves a thorough and honest accounting. But right now, the only number that matters is zero. Zero fatalities from a seaplane crash and fire in open water. That's the whole story.
