Kenmore Air crash: How civilians ‘saved the day’

The floatplane had crashed and was wedged between the sea and the rocks, already smoldering, by the time emergency responders arrived.

It would soon erupt into flames. Yet through some combination of quick thinking, bravery and good fortune, none of the 11 people on board Kenmore Air Flight 140, from Seattle to the San Juan Islands, were killed in the crash.

Why the single-engine floatplane, a de Havilland DHC-3 Otter, crashed Thursday on the shore of Sucia Island, between the San Juans and the Canadian border, remains unclear. There were sudden thunderstorms in the area at the time of the crash, and Kenmore Air confirmed on Friday that the pilot adjusted his flight path in response to the weather.

Three people remained hospitalized Friday afternoon. Two of the most seriously injured passengers, both in their 20s, were in satisfactory condition at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle. A third was being treated at PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Center in Bellingham. The pilot was discharged from Skagit Valley Hospital.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration both said Friday that they are investigating the crash. The plane was expected to be recovered Friday and taken to a secure facility for further examination, the NTSB said.

Investigators will request radar data, weather information, maintenance records and the pilot’s medical records, the NTSB said. They’ll look at the “human, machine and environment” as factors.

A preliminary report will be available within 30 days, though that may not include the probable cause of the crash. The cause, along with contributing factors, will be detailed in a final report that could take up to two years to produce.

Boaters rush to rescue

Videos posted to social media appear to show the plane make a wobbly emergency landing in Shallow Bay just offshore. There’s then a loud crash, and the plane ultimately ends up lodged on the rocky coast of Sucia Island.

The 10 passengers and the pilot had already gotten themselves out of the wreckage by the time a fleet of rescuers — from San Juan County, the U.S. and Canadian coast guards, the U.S. Navy and several other agencies — arrived to help, emergency officials said. The 10 managed to climb out of the plane and scramble off the rocks to safety.

“The pilot was able to help people get out,” San Juan County Undersheriff Michael Hairston said.

They were helped by good Samaritans, people out for a boat ride in the San Juans, who rushed to the scene to get the passengers away from the volatile crash site. Some had been close to Sucia Island while others headed that way when they heard a radio call for help.

When Nathan Butler, a San Juan Island EMS commander, arrived at the crash site, there were more than a dozen recreational boats already there.

About a dozen people helped the occupants of the plane onto a flotilla of three boats they had tied together, Butler said. Boaters performed first aid, bandaging bloody heads and injured limbs, and passed out blankets to keep people warm, Butler said.

“They significantly put themselves out of their own way to help other people, and it did make a difference,” he said.

Emily Johnson, a certified nurse midwife from Shoreline, was one of around six medical professionals who happened to be in the area when the crash happened. She got to the site by borrowing a stranger’s kayak.

Johnson, 33, said boaters converted two vessels into a triage station before authorities arrived. They used foam from life jackets to fashion splints for injured passengers, who suffered concussions, cuts and broken bones, including a broken pelvis.

“This was probably the worst day of a lot of these people’s lives, and it meant a lot that they trusted us to care for them,” Johnson said.

Emergency responders then tied their boats to the civilian flotilla and treated the injured, sending some by boat to the San Juans and airlifting some to hospitals. 

Jack DeCook told KGMI Radio that he’d been on his boat on the other side of Sucia Island when he saw a big black plume of smoke coming up over the shoreline. At first, he thought a boat had caught fire. By the time he’d motored around to see the source of the smoke, the crash site was surrounded by boaters.

“They all jumped in their dinghies and ran over there and rescued everybody,” DeCook told the radio station. “It was the civilians that really saved the day.”

A video released by the U.S. Coast Guard shows an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter hovering above the water and hoisting an injured passenger up from a boat to the helicopter.

“Basket’s going down,” a helicopter crew member says as they lower a rescue basket toward the boat.

“Easy, easy,” another crew member says.

“Basket’s on deck,” the first person says, as two people on the boat grab the rails of the basket.

After a cut, the video shows the basket being lifted back up, with a person partially covered in blankets inside. The person’s right leg is wrapped in bandages.

Crash cause unclear

Late Friday morning, Hairston, the undersheriff, said he was on the scene of the crash. It was low tide, so the plane was above the water and accessible, but he said the state Department of Fish and Wildlife had divers in the water to search for any pieces or debris.

On Thursday, thunderstorms were moving through the area at the time of the crash, with 12 to 20 mph gusts and 10-mile visibility, the National Weather Service said.

Christopher Peacock, executive director of the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival, was in Eastsound on Orcas Island, about 3 miles south of the crash site on Thursday evening. Peacock described a very calm day and then the sudden onset of a “tremendous lightning storm.”

“It was big, and it was right in that location,” Peacock said. “It was happening all around us, right above us.”

“It was totally unexpected,” he added.

The plane took off Thursday at 4:33 p.m. from Lake Union in Seattle and headed toward Roche Harbor. About 45 minutes later, when it was just north of Orcas Island, flight-tracking sites show it made a sudden hairpin turn and flew east before rapidly descending and crashing off Sucia Island.

The DHC-3 Otter that crashed was up to date on required inspections and had completed its most recent 100-hour inspection in June, according to Kenmore Air. The last annual inspection was in January.

An aging workhorse of the seaplane system that crisscrosses Puget Sound, the model is the largest that Kenmore Air operates and one of the largest planes that can be flown by a single pilot.

The plane that crashed was manufactured in 1960. For more than 50 years, the plane was flown by multiple Canadian operators, often to remote villages in the Northwest Territories, according to Aviation Safety Network reports.

Kenmore Air bought the plane in 2016, according to FAA data. The pilot of the floatplane has been with the airline since 2022.

The pilot initially served as a flight instructor, then became a seaplane captain, according to Kenmore Air.

For its Otter captains, Kenmore Air requires at least 1,500 flight hours and 500 hours of pilot-in-command hours, according to a now-closed job listing. The captain must also have a clean FAA record and an FAA Class 2 medical certificate.

Seattle Times staff reporters Paul Roberts, Alexis Weisend and Savannah Butcher contributed to this report.

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