ASTORIA, Ore. — A former Astoria mayor and her pilot son have been identified as the survivors of a small plane crash on the Columbia River near the Astoria docks.
The Daily Astorian reported that a Columbia Bar Pilots boat rescued former Mayor Edith Henningsgaard-Miller on Friday after tossing her a life ring, then they rescued Bill Henningsgaard as he climbed off the wing.
The newspaper said the former mayor and her son had just begun a flight to Seattle on Friday when he realized they had a problem.
The pair turned back in an attempt to return to the Astoria Regional Airport at Warrenton, but didn’t make it.
Instead, Bill Henningsgaard put the plane down in the river.
Mike Davis, day captain of the launch stand for the Columbia River Bar Pilots, saw the crash and took the pilot boat out to the plane.
“By then they were coming out on the wing,” Davis told The Daily Astorian.
Astoria emergency crews were on hand for their arrival ashore.
“They were very lucky,” Davis said.
The plane was tied up overnight Friday to a Coast Guard buoy tender, the Fir, before salvage experts used a private floating crane to winch it up on a barge on Saturday.
The plane was taken to the Port of Astoria dock where it will be inspected by Federal Aviation Administration officials.
Edith Henningsgaard-Miller told the newspaper that she and her son were flying to Seattle Friday afternoon to see her granddaughter perform in a play.
“We had just crossed over the hills in Washington, when I said, ‘I didn’t notice this valley before and all these houses,”’ she said.
Henningsgaard-Miller said they were 5,000 feet up when “all of a sudden the engine just stopped.”
Her son said, “‘This is an emergency,’ and I didn’t say anything else,” she said.
They were nearly back to the airport in Warrenton when Bill Henningsgaard told his mother, “We’re not going to make it” and began gliding toward the river.
After they hit the water and got out of the plane, she said they stood on the wing for what felt like about 10 minutes. But her son said later it was really only about two minutes before help arrived.
It was a good thing, she said, because when her son told her “‘We’ll have to swim to shore,’ I said, ‘I don’t swim.”’
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