As smoke billowed into the cockpit of Steve Scruggs’ Beechcraft Bonanza and oil splattered across its windshield, the 51-year-old Astoria eye doctor knew his vacation was over.

His 14-year-old son, Peter, took a little longer to reach the same conclusion – possibly because of the apparent ease of their 2,000-foot emergency descent, although his father was quick to point out the accident’s grave results: catastrophic engine failure and significant structural damage to his plane.

It all started with a five-plane sight-seeing trip to Alaska. On July 1, the group, which included former Clatsop County Sheriff John Raichl and Astoria dentist Philip Bales, was en route to Anchorage from Juneau, Alaska.

Scruggs and his son had been in the air about one hour when they first smelled smoke.

Not the kind that pours from exhaust pipes, and not the fiery fumes of tail-smoke, but an oily vapor had filled the cockpit. It was just strong enough to seem significant, Scruggs said. But the smell cleared, and for a few minutes, everything seemed OK.

Then the smoke returned.

“And it was into the cockpit, out of the engine … Oil was flying on the windshield,” Scruggs said. “It was all downhill from there.”

He pulled back all of the engine controls and told his companion pilots by radio that he was going down. He made a quick decision as he approached a narrow strip of remote Alaskan beach.

“With power, you can sort of pick where you want to land,” he said. “Without power, you’re unable to extend anything. When you cut the engine, you have a finite distance (the plane) will go.”

The 2,000-foot descent lasted just three to five minutes. At one point, it looked like they might hit a large chunk of driftwood, but Scruggs had just enough air speed for the plane to balloon up and glide over it. He said they managed to avoid most of the grapefruit- and cantaloupe-sized boulders strewn across the shore.

The plane hit the ground and the wheels dug in, thrusting weight onto the nose.

“We were just at the point of stopping when the nose let go,” Scruggs recounted. “It didn’t even pull us tight on our seatbelts.”

No one was injured. A companion pilot from Long Beach, Calif., radioed a passing Alaska Airlines flight, which contacted the U.S. Coast Guard for help. Former sheriff Raichl maintained contact with the downed plane to help watch for bears – the group had spotted a grizzly about 200 yards from where Scruggs ended up landing, near the entrance of Lituya Bay, in Glacier Bay National Park on Alaska’s southeastern coast.

The doctor’s son was OK up until then, having compared the situation to getting shot down in combat-simulating video games. But disappointment may have started to set in once they came to a stop.

“During the smoke, I realized the trip was finished,” Scruggs said. “What really made him realize the trip was over was when the nose wheel broke.”

Soon, a U.S. Coast Guard crew from Alaska’s Air Station Sitka arrived and took the pair by helicopter back to the station. The next day they flew to Juneau, where they spent the rest of their vacation.

That’s where the damaged plane remains, after being taken by helicopter off the beach near Lituya Bay. The engine “threw a rod,” suffering catastrophic failure in the accident, which is now under investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.

It may take awhile for the plane to get a new engine, but Scruggs, who has been flying for more than a decade and has owned his Beechcraft Bonanza for about 10 years, plans to again sit in the pilot’s seat.

“The first time I get back behind the controls I’ll probably be a little nervous,” he said. “But sure … it’s just going to take time.”