TACOMA – A Sequim pilot landed safely after his Cessna 182 was clipped in midair by another plane that splashed into Commencement Bay on Tuesday.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer said the collision occurred just before 1 p.m.
All three people aboard the two planes survived.
“It was a very fortunate day,” said Bud Williams, a home inspector in Sequim, who was piloting the Cessna.
“The collision wasn’t fortunate, but people normally don’t survive those.”
“People are still alive and planes can be fixed, except for theirs. She’s in 400 feet of water.”
Williams, who was alone in his plane, wasn’t hurt at all, although he admitted: “I was shaking when I got out of the plane.”
The pilot of the plane that sank and his mother, who is in her 70s, were taken to local hospitals, Tacoma Police Detective Thomas Williams said.
The woman was suffering from mild hypothermia after they were rescued by boaters, he said.
Neither of the two in the plane that went into the water was identified.
Bud Williams, 63, said he was flying home to the North Olympic Peninsula, heading west at about 1,500 feet, when an American Champ came from his right, “right in front of me. . . . I just got a brief glimpse of him, just enough to turn away.”
