Life Flight rescuers have told of the relief they felt when they saw the passengers of a light plane crash give them the “thumbs up” from waters off Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.
The two men were rescued from a life raft after their Cessna light plane lost an engine and the pilot was forced to do a controlled ditching into the sea about 30 nautical miles north-east of the Sunshine Coast at 9am yesterday.
The 59-year-old and 51-year-old alerted air traffic control to their engine issues, triggering a response from the RACQ LifeFlight rescue helicopter but they were first spotted by a Royal Flying Doctor Service (RFDS) plane that was flying past.
The RDFS plane monitored the men on the life raft until the LifeFlight chopper arrived about 10 minutes later.
“They managed to get the aircraft safely into the water and they managed to extricate themselves from the wreckage,” RACQ LifeFlight pilot Andrew Caton said.
“They got into a life raft and then as soon as we got overhead, you can see that there was a sense of relief on their faces.”
Queensland Ambulance Service paramedic Mick O’Brien said when they got overhead “they were giving us the thumbs up”.
“That was a massive sense of relief for us,” O’Brien said.
He said it was an “amazing outcome”.
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“We got them into the helicopter and they were fine.
“They were uninjured… It’s just an incredible story of survival for these two guys.”
He said they were preparing for the worst but the pilot did an incredible job to ditch the aircraft.
The men were discharged from hospital with no injuries.
It’s understood the Cessna aircraft had left Caloundra Airport and was travelling to American Samoa.
The aircraft was full of fuel so when the plane lost one of the engines it wasn’t strong enough to maintain its height.
