Two people escaped with minor injuries when their small, single-engine aircraft made an emergency water landing off Makaha Beach Park on Monday.

The Beechcraft Sundowner was headed to Honolulu Airport and might have experienced engine trouble.

The two people on board, a 56-year-old male pilot and a 52-year-old woman, both from Hawaii, were spotted wearing life vests and clinging to the wings of the plane shortly after it flew close to a house and went down in the water at a surfing and swimming area known as Charlie’s Reef, said Shayne Enright, spokeswoman for the city’s Emergency Services Department.

Robby Oliveros, 18, and his cousin Austin Inabata, 21, were fishing off the shore nearby when they were warned that an airplane was about to crash.

“All of a sudden, a fisherman right next to us said, ‘Head’s up. There’s a plane coming.’ And we looked up,” Oliveros said. “Then the plane was coming toward us, and it took a left and it headed toward Makaha Beach. It just started gliding down into the water. It just nearly missed shore.”

He added, “It actually came in nice and slow and looked like nothing was wrong with the plane. From what I witnessed, it just looked like it ran out of gas or something, or maybe an engine failure.”

The plane was “quiet” as it descended and “just made a big splash,” Oliveros said.

Two lifeguards spotted the aircraft’s tail in the reef’s waters at about 11:20 a.m. and swam to the scene — about 50 yards from shore in water about 10 to 12 feet deep. Shortly thereafter a good-Samaritan Jet Ski operator arrived at the scene and transported one lifeguard and the two people to Makaha Beach Park, Enright said. The other lifeguard swam back to shore.

Responding paramedics treated the man and woman for chest abrasions and transported them in stable condition to a hospital.

“We scan the whole beach as a whole, and something just didn’t look right. You just see half a plane sticking out of the water,” said Blake Caporoz, one of the responding lifeguards. “As we got to them, they were really grateful that we brought them to shore safely.”

A state Department of Transportation spokesman said the flight originated in Lihue.

Ocean Safety personnel monitored the crash site Monday for debris, and officials installed equipment to address any potential oil spill. Officials from the Honolulu Fire Department, the state Department of Land and Natural Resources and the Federal Aviation Administration also responded to the scene.

The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash. According to the FAA registry, the plane is co-owned by Eric and Leslie Ann Kawamoto of Honolulu, and its certificate is valid.

Lifeguards posted a no-swimming sign at Charlie’s Reef on Monday afternoon.

Dan Gawley and his wife, Lorna Torres, said they were near the lifeguard tower at Makaha Beach when they heard a woman yell that a plane had crashed into the water. Torres said she called 911, and the couple said they later saw the two people from the plane walking on the shore after the Jet Ski operator transported them there. Gawley said when he spoke to the man and woman, they seemed fine.

“Everybody helped. Everybody converged on it,” said Gawley, who is visiting with his family from Canada. “Everybody has been helping.”

The crash was the second involving a small plane in Hawaii on Monday. Earlier Monday morning a skydiving tour plane crashed near Port Allen Airport on Kauai, killing the five people on board.

———

Staff writer William Cole contributed to this report.