BLACKFOOT, Idaho — For over two hours Sunday, crews worked to remove a small passenger plane that had crashed into the Snake River.
A pilot, who was the only person inside the plane at the time of the crash, called at a nearby house around 6 p.m. asking for help, according to a news release from Bingham County. It was reported that the pilot had non-life-threatening injuries.
FlightAware.com, a flight tracking website, showed the plane flying out of Idaho Falls Regional Airport at 5:40 p.m. with an estimated time of arrival at the McCarley Field Airport in Blackfoot at 5:54 p.m. The plane is shown stopping 1.38 miles away from the airport, near the bridge on Rose Road. The Federal Aviation Administration's aircraft inquiry reports the plane was a Tecnam P2008.
The homeowner who helped the pilot says he heard a loud thud and assumed it was a semi-truck or another large vehicle that made the noise. Twenty minutes later, he heard his doorbell ring and saw a man "dripping wet, with blood on his face."
"He wouldn't really talk much. He was just panicked," the homeowner said.
The homeowner said he helped the man out of his wet clothes and called 911 for help.
He said the pilot told him he was coming out of Idaho Falls, and that his chest hurt.
I'm really surprised he got out of that river and walked up here.
–Homeowner
"I'm really surprised he got out of that river and walked up here," said the homeowner. "He's lucky to be alive. If he had hit that bridge, we wouldn't have seen him."
