The pilot of a twin-engine Cessna who ditched his plane into the ocean 13 miles off Hawaii Island on Friday afternoon after running out of fuel has been released from the hospital.

The man identified as Charles Brian Mellor, of Spain, was delivering the Cessna 310 to Australia with a planned stop in Hilo for American King Air Services, said Pablo Bassabe, the company’s vice president of logistics.

Bassabe said Saturday that Mellor had been released from the hospital.

Bassabe said the plane had no mechanical problems, but strong headwinds may have contributed to the problem.

He said the National Transportation Safety Board asked him not to comment further on the incident, pending the agency’s investigation.

Mellor departed from Monterey, Calif., on Friday morning. When about 500 miles from Hawaii island, he reported to authorities that he might run out of fuel 100 miles from the island.

The Federal Aviation Administration contacted the Coast Guard at 12:30 p.m.

The Coast Guard sent a plane to rendezvous with Mellor’s Cessna and dispatched a ship and helicopter to be ready for a possible rescue, spokesman Lt. Gene Maestas told The Associated Press.

After meeting up with the plane over the Pacific, the Guard’s HC-130 Hercules flew alongside for more than an hour, until the aircraft’s fuel gave out and it went down 13 miles off Hawaii.

"We were communicating to him the entire time," Maestas said. "The pilots were telling him how to make the airplane ready … to lighten, tie things down, adjust the seat."

Mellor was urged to go in at a low angle to the water and touch down parallel to the waves — running at a strong 6 feet — rather than absorbing their power by plowing into them head-first.

"We basically talked him down," Maestas said.

Mellor ditched his airplane about an hour before sundown.

In the two-minute video apparently shot from another Coast Guard aircraft, the plane skims the water for a few seconds before coming to an abrupt stop and spinning around in the foaming seas.

It floats upright with the pilot clinging to it but appears to begin sinking within a minute, as the Guard swimmer is lowered to waters near the plane.

"He was able to crawl out of cockpit and speak to the rescue swimmer; he didn’t appear to have any significant injuries," Maestas said.

The video shows the swimmer hanging onto the basket carrying Mellor as it moves upward, before the swimmer drops several feet back into the water. It ends with the helicopter carrying the pilot flying off. Maestas said the Cessna sank in just a few minutes.

"We feel very fortunate that we were able to save this man’s life," he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.