Sampson Cay - Seaplane Crash

This morning we watched a seaplane come in and land right in the anchorage. It looked like it was coming from Nassau, and actually touched down and anchored near some other boats. We had lunch, did a load of laundry on the boat and then turned on the generator and the watermaker and waited for it to refill the 17 gallons of water we had used to wash our clothes. Still cheaper than the laundry at Sampson Cay marina, at $4 per machine it would've cost more than running the genset for a few hours. I went downstairs and read a little before deciding to take a nap. Kevin woke me up by opening the hatch (he was up on deck) and announcing "the seaplane is getting ready to take off". So I came outside to watch, since I'd never seen one take off before.

The seaplane motored slowly west (away from the island) and Kevin said it would eventually turn around to take off since the wind was coming from the east and it needed to take off into the wind. It didn't go out too much farther before it turned around and was basically heading straight toward the marina. It sped up and was even with us when it started to lift. But it didn't lift high enough and touched the water again. After that we just watched in horror as he got closer to the marina (on his right side) and a small 25 foot hill (directly in front of him). Kevin murmured, "he's not going fast enough". At the last second the pilot got enough altitude that he almost cleared the hill but we heard a sickening crash before watching the plane spin over the hill and out of sight. I can't remember if I started crying right away, but Kevin and I just looked at each other and said "oh my god" before I went below to turn on the VHF so that Kevin could call in a Mayday. There were at least 20-30 people who were at the marina, and we were further away, but we got our fire extinguisher, medical kit, and portable VHF loaded into the dinghy. We amazingly heard a response on the radio from a boat on the other side of the hill saying that all four people were okay. But we thought we would go anyway just in case they needed supplies (back when I was stocking the kit we got sutures, bandages, splints, etc), plus if the thing was on fire another extinguisher couldn't hurt.

We pulled our dinghy around and there were a good 30 people there in skiffs and dinghies, as well as two paramedics from one of the yachts in the marina. When we asked if they needed anything they all said that the people were all fine, the pilot had a bump on his head but other than that he was okay and talking on the phone. Kevin went to look at the wreckage but I couldn't bring myself to and stayed with the dinghy instead. Both pontoons had been torn clean off, but the plane was still upright. The left wing was crumpled a bit but both wings were still attached to the fully intact fuselage. The plane had gained enough height in the last few seconds to slide over the top of the hill instead of crashing nosefirst into it, and it had actually spun around and gone tail first partway down the other side. The undergrowth of palms and scrub must've acted as a net because the plane was at a stop before it reached the beach on the other side of the hill. These people were lucky, lucky to be alive and even luckier to be walking away. I am still shaking as I type this. We were shocked to the core to see it happen and I hope to never see anything like this again.