Pilot survives crash landing in seas off Matinicus Island

MATINICUS– English pilot John Earl had much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving weekend after surviving the crash landing of his plane in seas off Matinicus Island yesterday.

U.S. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Arnold LeCompte said Earl, 43, of Worchester, was 15 miles southeast of Matinicus when his 22-foot amphibious aircraft experienced problems.

Earl sounded a distress call at 10:47 a.m. and made an emergency landing a few minutes later. Earl was the only person on board the plane which was en route from Newfoundland to Texas via Boston when icing and carburetor failure occured.

“He had some mechanical problems and had to land it in the ocean out there,” LeCompte reported. “When we picked him up he had a few bumps and bruises but was basically okay.”

The Coast Guard responded to the distress call by dispatching a jet and a helicopter from Cape Cod and a 41-foot cruiser from Rockland. The helicopter monitored Earl’s progress until the arrival of the vessel, which pulled alongside the bobbing aircraft at 11:42 a.m. and took Earl aboard.

LeCompte said a commercial vessel was called to tow the plane to Matinicus. The craft had taken on some water but was in no danger of sinking, he said.

“It sustained some damages. Evidently those planes are designed to land in a flat environment and there was about a two to three foot chop out there,” LeCompte said.

The airplane crash was the second reported in the midcoast area over the Thanksgiving weekend. On Friday, pilot Rex Bickford walked away from the crash of his single-engine plane when he landed short of his private runway on Chapel Hill Road in Waldoboro.