A small plane with four people abroad crashed into the Pacific Ocean off Hawaii after running out of fuel on Sunday, just hours after the pilot of another plane ran out of fuel and safely landed his aircraft off the coast of Maui, authorities said, adding that all five people on both aircrafts survived.
The separate incidents involved a single-engine plane carrying a solo pilot about 250 miles off the island of Maui, and another single-engine Cessna with three adults and one child on board several miles off the island of Oahu, the Coast Guard said.
Around 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, a pilot traveling from Tracy, Calif., to Maui radioed Hawaii National Guard about plans to ditch a Cirrus SR-22 aircraft upon noticing his aircraft had only three hours of fuel left, CBS News reported. After abandoning the aircraft 253 miles northeast of Maui by deploying a parachute system, the unidentified pilot was rescued by a cruise-ship crew and reported to be in good condition, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.
Coast Guard video shows the plane releasing its parachute and briefly dropping nose-first before leveling out and plopping into the sea, according to Los Angeles Times. The pilot escapes out the top of the aircraft, drifts away in an inflated life raft from the plane, and remains floating in the ocean until the Coast Guard Joint Rescue Coordination Center's was able to find a ship close enough to rescue him.
Six hours later, a plane flying from Kauai to Oahu radioed an emergency distress call at 6:18 p.m., claiming fuel was running low and the plane may need to ditch, the Coast Guard said. It eventually crash-landed about 11 miles west of Oahu.
After being rescued by helicopter and taken to Coast Guard Air Station Barbers Point near Honolulu, the passengers were transferred for emergency medical services, the Coast Guard said, adding that the conditions of the passengers was not known.
