Bill Henningsgaard, the pilot of the single-engine plane that crashed into the Columbia River Friday afternoon, said all things considered, an airport would have been a better place to land!

Henningsgaard, and his mother, former Astorian Mayor Edith Henningsgaard Miller, were rescued minutes after their plane crashed into the river.

A crew from Foss Maritime, the company that provides pilots for ships plying the river, rescued the two, who had scrambled out on the plane’s wing. Their only apparent injury was Bill Henningsgaard’s bitten lip.

The excitement made state-wide headlines, in part because of Edith Henningsgaard Miller’s fame, and in part because of the smoothness of the rescue of the passengers – and the plane, which was sinking into the Columbia when it was “lassoed” by marine deputies from the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office and tethered safely overnight with help from the U.S. Coast Guard.

The story continued Saturday as the plane was winched onto a barge by a floating crane, and taken to the Port of Astoria where aviation crash experts will examine it.

Friday’s flightThe drama began Friday afternoon as the Henningsgaards were flying to Seattle in the brand-new Epic LT to see Bill Henningsgaard’s daughter perform in a play.

The 36-foot-long, and 43-foot-wingspan Epic was built in Bend last year and had its first flight in January. There was a high cloud cover and the plan for Friday’s flight was to level out between 8,000 and 10,000 feet for the flight to Seattle.

Bill Henningsgaard said they’d been in the air between five to seven minutes, having just left from the Astoria Regional Airport in Warrenton. They were at about 8,000 feet when the engine quit.

Bill Henningsgaard set the airplane at the “best-fly angle” so it would glide as long as possible as he tried to restart the engine.

He said he thought about his options, including returning to the airport, but didn’t have enough altitude.

They were three-quarters of the way back when Bill Henningsgaard told his mother, “We’re not going to make it,” and began gliding down toward the river.

Edith Henningsgaard Miller recalled in an interview Saturday that if it been 10 minutes later they would have had to land on the ground and it would have been much different. But she was wearing a harness and said she was not hurt at all when the plane landed on the water.

The plane bounced on the water a couple of times, and came to rest.

Eyewitness accountEyewitness Jeff Abrahamsen, of Astoria, was watching shipping traffic along the river, when the plane came into his view, seconds before hitting the water.

It was headed up river, “looking like it was making a perfect landing,” he said. He said it reminded him of a seaplane coming in.

Then it disappeared in a splash.

“When we left the plane, I didn’t realize it would float as well as it did,” Bill Henningsgaard marveled. He said it was only a few minutes the two stood on the plane’s wing, though it felt like 10 or more.

Mike Davis, day captain of the launch stand for the Columbia River Pilots, said people in the stand heard a loud noise. They realized the plane was in the water and he grabbed his deck hand, Fred Snaza, and Columbia River pilot Chuck Dobbins.

The men took the pilot boat out to the plane.

“By then they were coming out on the wing,” Davis said.

He said they threw the two life preservers, then threw the woman a life ring and she swam to the boat. They were able to bring the boat right to the man, who scrambled aboard.

Davis and his crew verified there had been nobody else onboard the plane.

Within seven minutes of the crash, they were headed back for the launch stand, Davis said.

“They were very lucky,” Davis said. “The man was bleeding from the nose or mouth, and that’s about it.”

“My mother and I talked about the option of swimming to shore,” Henningsgaard said.

Then they saw the pilot boat headed straight for them and realized help was on the way.

Edith Henningsgaard Miller was wearing her “good clothes” because she was going to see her granddaughter’s play, she said. Although she was not hurt when the plane hit the water, her body was “bruised all over” from being dragged through the rigging as they pulled her aboard.

She praised her rescuers, “They were so wonderful to me.”

After crews from Medix Ambulance checked them both over on the dock, she was taken to her home in Astoria. She put on dry clothing and went to bed. Her daughter, Jolee, a nurse, was there with her.

Bill Henningsgaard thanked the Foss transportation crew who came to their rescue, along with the U.S. Coast Guard and Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office Marine Patrol who quickly responded, and the Medix Ambulance crew which attended to the pair’s injuries. Also responding to the crash were Astoria police and fire department personnel.

The perfect spotHenningsgaard had set the plane down just aft and starboard of the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Fir. The 225-foot buoytender recently returned from having maintenance done at the Bellingham, Wash. shipyard. It is scheduled to head to Warrenton today, before heading out to sea.

“This is probably the best spot in the whole river (to ditch a plane),” said the Fir’s Lt. Cmdr. Mark Vlaun. “It was really the best-case scenario. It was fortuitous or lucky that he happened to land while we were here.”

Vlaun said, in addition to two Coast Guard vessels, there are pilot boats and the Clatsop County Marine Patrol nearby.

He grinned as he said Sector Portland radioed and said he’d have to respond to a plane crash – to perform a rescue, if needed, or assess for fuel spills and wreckage.

“He called me back a couple of times and said, ‘The plane’s coming to you,'” Vlaun said.

The plane drifted into the pier between two Coast Guard vessels, and the worry became whether the plane would be crushed between them. Working with the Clatsop County Marine Patrol, they were able to drift the plane alongside the Fir and tie it off.

The first worry for the crews is the safety of the plane’s passengers. In this case, the passengers had climbed out onto the plane’s wing and been rescued within minutes. The next priority is to prevent pollutants from spreading into the river.

The plane leaked its aviation fuel into the river. But a check of environmental quality revealed that the aviation fuel evaporates quickly and would be gone soon.

“Aviation fuel is extremely light and evaporates faster than you can skim it,” Vlaun said.

Chief offers commentsAstoria Police Chief Pete Curzon said the Clatsop County Sheriff’s Office is responsible for the Columbia River (in terms of jurisdiction).

His department interviewed the two on board and took their initial statements for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which arrived on the scene about 9 p.m. Friday.

“This thing drifted down between the two (cutters) – it was unique,” Curzon said.

He said the FAA and the pilot contacted the manufacturer to find out where to “sling” the plane. They had to determine at what points on the plane it could be lifted without crushing or breaking it.

“He closed the doors and windows before he got out of it. That’s what kept it floating so long,” Curzon said.

Vlaun said it is up to the owner of the vessel – whether boat, plane or automobile – to remove it from the river.

Salvage accomplishedBergerson Construction, Inc., was called in to remove the plane from the river. Greg Morrill, of Bergerson Construction, said, “Any time anything goes in the water, they call us. It’s rare we do anything like this. We have done some boat salvages – it’s rare.”

Morrill wouldn’t reveal what the estimated cost to remove this plane from the river would be, but he said the customer is generally charged by the hour for labor and equipment. In this case the company floated in a platform with a crane on it to lift the plane from the river.

Along with Bergerson, divers had to be brought in. Northwest Underwater Construction, based in Vancouver, Wash., specializes in deep-water construction, heavy marine salvage and nuclear, hydroelectric, industrial and environmental diving.

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