Pilot OK After Plane Crash On Lake

    All's well that ends well, and a huge sigh of relief could be heard coming from the Crescent Lake area of Umatilla on Wednesday, March 22, when pilot Jim Knopke emerged safely from his single-engine amphibian plane that was upside down in the lake. Knopke, returning home from a brief flight to the Umatilla Municipal airport for fuel, saw his plane overturn upon landing after the plane's dry land landing gear, which had failed to retract after leaving Umatilla, plowed into the water and flipped the plane over.
   The plane, which witnesses described as creating a ‘wall of water’ as its wings hit the surface, had barely come to a stop before residents around the lake had taken to their boats to provide assistance. Knopke, uninjured in the incident, was able to remove himself from the plane on his own, and was ready to begin recovery efforts by the time help arrived.
   “You don’t get out right away,” Knopke said this week. The experienced pilot, who splits time between Umatilla and Fairbanks, Alaska, understood the moment. “You let everything equalize. I checked the backseat even though I knew I was the only one in the plane - that’s part of my training. Then I kicked off and swam up to the top.”
   The key in such situations, Knopke says, is not to panic. In fact, the recovery, which began with tying the plane to a responding pontoon boat and pulling toward Knopke’s home and hangar on the west side of the lake and ended over four hours later, was a testament to patience, an understanding of physics, and community cooperation.
   Knopke said he had his first indication that there might be an issue with the plane’s hydraulic system that raises and lowers the wheels for dry land operations, at the Umatilla airport. The discovery of a hydraulic leak was on his mind as he returned home, taking his attention away from his regular landing mental checklist, leading to the one injury during the whole event.
   “The only thing I hurt was my pride.”
   But Knopke also found pride in his adopted community. A recent-years arrival to the area after discovering Lake County via a story on Tavares’ ‘Seaplane City’ moniker in a flight magazine, Knopke said he already knew Umatilla was a nice place, but now he knows its even more.
   “It’s precious,” he said of the community spirit that saw so many neighbors jump into action, neighbors that he said in some cases he doesn’t know that well.
   One offered, and delivered a tractor to help. Another offered to call Ed's Crane Service, which showed up in short order to spend several hours nursing the fragile, 2,000-pound plane - which is wrapped in fabric - out of the lake and onto the shore. Neighbors tugged on ropes, dug holes to help the stricken plane's landing gear come down without breaking as the plane was placed right side up. Lake resident Scott Purvis boated over and helped coordinate where to place the many straps and ropes to best handle the forces associated with the operation.
   “Everyone came together,” Knopke said. “It was really special.”
   Knopke said the FAA has come and investigated the incident, and now all that remains is going through the plane and making sure all of its systems, including some electronics, are repaired or deemed undamaged by the incident.
   Small plane crashes are often fatal, and landing on water, even at a lower speed that can be associated with amphibians, can be a lot like landing on solid ground, especially when things go wrong. Coming out of such a crash uninjured is a pleasant happening, as is seeing so many people rush to help a neighbor in need. The latter, however, is no surprise in North Lake County.