Eric Kawamoto and his wife, Leslie, walked away with only bruises Monday when their Beechcraft Sundowner plane plunged into a Makaha surfing and swimming area known as Charlie’s Reef.
On Wednesday, as salvage crews finished recovering parts of the single-engine aircraft that made an emergency landing, the recuperating Honolulu couple were still feeling a bit stunned.
“Right now, I’m still taking time to process,” said Leslie Kawamoto. “As each day goes by I remember more things. But we’re just very grateful that we were able to land safely and make it to shore. We were very lucky.”
She added, “Each day we feel better.”
Eric Kawamoto, the plane’s pilot, said: “The hardest part is dealing with it emotionally. It’s like, ‘Wow, what just happened?’”
The Kawamotos were flying home from a friend’s wedding on Kauai when their plane had engine trouble at an altitude of about 3,500 feet.
Knowing that the aircraft would not make it to Honolulu Airport, the Navy electrical engineer, who has about 10 years of experience in the pilot’s seat of small, single-engine planes, told his wife they would head to Kalaeloa Airport. But as the plane’s engine sputtered, he quickly realized that an airport landing would not be an option.
The pilot then rapidly scanned the shoreline. Ruling out a sand landing that might affect beachgoers, he opted to ditch in the ocean. Gliding downward at about 500 feet per minute, he aimed for waters close enough to shore to swim for help.
After the plane hit the water, the pair managed to get out and climb atop a wing. As it started to sink, the couple, wearing life vests, started swimming. Leslie Kawamoto recalled, “It was so rough, the water. We kept trying to swim in. It didn’t look like we were getting closer” to shore.
Two lifeguards who had spotted the plane’s tail jutting from waters about 50 yards from shore responded to the crash scene at about 11:20 a.m. Monday. A personal watercraft operator arrived soon after and carried the couple to shore, where paramedics treated and transported them to the Queen’s Medical Center.
They went to the emergency room in stable condition with minor injuries.
The couple said they are grateful for the efforts of first responders who helped rescue them.
Leslie Kawamoto, 52, who works at Queen’s in human resources, said that when it was clear that an emergency landing was in the works, she was able to send a message to friends aboard another small plane flying ahead of their aircraft. Those friends notified first responders and gave them coordinates.
The salvage crew work spanned part of Tuesday and about eight hours Wednesday after workers searched an area about 200 feet in diameter in two red boats.
Michael Parker, owner of Parker Marine Towing and Salvage, the company hired to retrieve the aircraft, said, “It (plane) was pretty well chewed up from the swells.”
Parker said the engine had broken off and the wings were smashed. “Everything else was really beat up.”
Eric Kawamoto, 56, said despite the escalating engine trouble he was “pretty confident” that they would make a safe landing. During his decade of experience flying planes, he said he had never been involved in an accident.
Leslie Kawamoto, a former Honolulu Advertiser employee, said, “Things do cross your mind, but I guess from 3,500 feet we knew we had engine trouble so you try to brace yourself.”
The couple bought the plane a few years ago, with the idea of flying fairly often. Although both said Wednesday that they feel fine and that their chest bruises caused by straining seat belts are mending, Eric Kawamoto said he has “no plans” to strap himself into a seat aboard a small plane anytime soon.
Monday’s ocean-ditching wasn’t the first time Eric Kawamoto survived life-threatening circumstances.
In June 2003, he was shot and critically wounded when he walked in on a teenager who was burglarizing his Punchbowl home in the middle of the day, a crime that sparked outrage at a time when violent property crimes were escalating on Oahu.
Confronted by Kawamoto, Miti Maugaotega Jr. brandished a gun and demanded his wallet before pulling the trigger.
As Kawamoto would later testify in court, he was expecting to hear a loud bang and instead only heard a click as the gun misfired. Kawamoto said he was trying to disarm Maugaotega when the trigger was pulled a second time, and he took a bullet in the chest. He was able to stagger to a neighbor’s front door for help. Maugaotega, 18, was later apprehended.
