The pilot and her teenage son had a moment to extricate themselves from the sunshine plane that crashed into the sea before sailing away to safety in a hair-raising emergency.
Michelle Yeats was flying back to Perth, Australia together with her 15-year-old son Jake after watching a solar eclipse within the north of Western Australia when the plane’s engine shut down around 5:00 p.m.
Yeats says the plane began behaving strangely, which prompted her to send Mayday and make the short decision to attempt a water landing.
“Dude, we just had an engine failure, we’re going to have to land on the beach,” she told ABC, which she told her son.
“He said, ‘Really, are you actually? I said, “I hope that is essentially the most exciting thing that is going to occur in your life and the whole lot might be okay.”
Yeats, a business pilot, said she had trained for such a landing “many, over and over” but never expected to have to actually do it.
“I used to be only at 1,500 feet, did not have much time to react, so I just sent may day to the tower and then just turned around and landed on the water – I attempted to get as close to the beach as I could without hitting no one,” Yes said.
The plane went down about 30-50 yards from Leightons Beach.
“Then Jake opened the door in a short time and we just got out because it was raining,” she said.
“We just stood on the wings … I just thought we might have to sail.”
People on Leighton Beach swam out to help them get back to shore.
Police said a lot of the plane was submerged in water, with only a small portion visible above the waterline.
Each Yeats and Jake were examined by the local ambulance.