5 people injured after plane crashes into body of water at Oregon airport
Five people were hospitalized after a small plane skidded off a runway into a body of water at the Southwest Oregon Regional Airport in North Bend on Monday.
An airport spokesperson, Stephanie Kilmer, told the Eugene Register-Guard that a small private aircraft skidded off Runway 23 at 6:12 a.m. The plane, a 2019 Honda HA-240 that departed from Utah, ended up approximately five feet into Coos Bay.
The aircraft was located about 100 feet off the east end of the runway and was secured by emergency response teams.
"We had aircraft rescue and firefighters on scene. There was actually a witness that witnessed the plane going off the end of the runway, so a call was made to emergency responders," Kilmer told local news station KEZI.
"This is where training and where our constant requirements, which afford us to have a mass casualty training, come into play. Everything worked smoothly like clockwork and those people were taken off the plane."
Crash under investigation
According to the airport, the plane was removed from the water per approval from the National Transportation Safety Board.
All four passengers and the pilot were rescued and taken to a hospital. They suffered from minor injuries but considered to be alert and in stable condition.
As of early Tuesday morning, only one remains hospitalized and another was transported to a different facility.
Commercial Air Traffic on the airport's main runway was shut down, however according to Southwest Oregon Regional Airport, "the quick authorization for its removal from the water assisted with reopening the airport's main runway to air traffic."
"The aircraft is currently being stored near the incident site until the NTSB can conduct and complete its evaluation," the airport continued.
The Federal Aviation Administration has also launched an investigation. The cause of the crash is unknown at this time.
Contributing: Haleigh Kochanski, Eugene Register-Guard
Taylor Ardrey is a news reporter for Paste BN. You can reach her at tardrey@gannett.com.