Plans are underway to recover the vintage Hawker Hunter jet whose pilot ejected low over the ocean Wednesday 2 miles south of Kewalo Basin, officials said.

The National Transportation Safety Board, meanwhile, said it is in the very early stages of investigating the cause of the 2:25 p.m. crash that injured pilot Matt Pothier and stunned onlookers as the camouflaged plane sank beneath the waves.

Carri Collins-Pothier said on Facebook that her husband, a contracted pilot who works for the Airborne Tactical Advantage Co., or ATAC, was scheduled to have surgery Thursday to fuse two vertebrae in his back.

The 47-year-old pilot was “in great spirits and the girls and I are doing fine,” she said. The Ewa Beach couple has two teenage daughters.

“We are just so thankful that he is still here with us and that no one else was injured in the accident,” Collins-Pothier said. Her husband “had a problem with his engine during takeoff” and had to eject from his plane at sea, she added.

“For 23 years I have dreaded getting a call like I did (Wednesday),” she said. “Thankfully it was Matt himself who called to tell me he was all right. He is doing OK with no life-threatening injuries. He has been smiling and laughing with all of his many visitors.”

Late Thursday afternoon Collins-Pothier said her former Navy pilot husband was out of surgery at The Queen’s Medical Center, but she was still waiting to see him.

“Everything went well,” she said in a phone interview. She added her thanks “for how many people have reached out to us.”

Pothier’s Hawker Hunter shocked two boatloads of parasailers when it appeared to develop trouble and slowed like it was going into a stall before the pilot ejected and the aircraft crashed and rapidly sank, witnesses said.

Before his surgery the native of Andover, Mass., told The Eagle Tribune in Massachusetts he aimed for open water as the plane faltered.

“There were a lot of boats in the water, so I pointed for a safe area and got out of the airplane,” Pothier told the newspaper.

NTSB spokesman Terry Williams said investigators were waiting to talk to Pothier and will look at the pilot’s records and aircraft maintenance records. “We want to do an examination of the aircraft once it is recovered,” he added.

The jet was part of the Hawaii Air National Guard’s big “Sentry Aloha” fighter training exercise, which is scheduled through Wednesday.

Guard spokesman Maj. Jeff Hickman said ATAC is in talks with a local salvage company to recover the plane from the seafloor. It was not immediately clear to officials how deep the water is at the crash site.

Matt Pothier said on his LinkedIn page that he is operations manager in Hawaii for ATAC, which provides former military jets and pilots to help train U.S. military pilots against “aggressor” or mock- enemy fighter aircraft.

Hawker Hunters, British single-seat fighters, first flew in 1951. The company declined Thursday to specify some of the steps it takes to keep the older planes in safe-flying condition.

Hickman said two ATAC Hawker Hunters are based at the Kaneohe Bay Marine Corps base. The second aircraft, which took off with the jet that crashed, was pulled from the exercise by the Hawaii Air National Guard, he said.

Hawaii Air National Guard’s F-22 Raptor fighters fly against the Hawker Hunters several times a month, Hickman said.