Two hospitalized after small aircraft crashes into American River near Discovery Park

A man and a woman were transported to a local trauma hospital after a small, two-seat aircraft crashed into the American River east of Interstate 5 by Discovery Park on Wednesday.

The two were aboard the aircraft when it went down, Sacramento Fire Department spokesman Capt. Keith Wade said. The department received a call regarding the crash at 11:37 a.m.

The man was able to move and seek assistance after the crash, but the woman’s condition was critical at UC Davis Medical Center, Wade said. It was not immediately clear how the aircraft crashed.

Efforts to remove the plane from the river began shortly after 1 p.m. and continued for hours. Emergency personnel with the Fire Department, park rangers, Sacramento County Office of Emergency Services and the nonprofit Drowning Accident Rescue Team (DART) responded. More than 50 personnel were at the scene.

The plane was mostly submerged in the river, less than a half-mile from the Jibboom Street Bridge and Interstate 5. Emergency crews worked for nearly three hours to bring the wrecked plane from the river to a boat ramp nearby.

Fire Department and police used two rafts and a larger boat to tow and steer the plane down the river after draining the aircraft of most of its oil. A visible amount of oil spilled out of the airplane as crews turned it toward the boat launch room next to the Jibboom Street Bridge.

“Any sort of fuel in the waterway was contained on-scene,” Wade said.

Water crews had to flip the plane upside down directly under the bridge in order to pull it to shore.

The aircraft was pulled aground by a private salvage crew consisting of three men operating a mobile winch in the rear of a Ford F-350 truck from the ramp. At one point, they used what appeared to be a large wooden plank covered in carpet-like material to shield the plane’s wings from jagged rocks along the shoreline as they pulled the aircraft in.

Further investigation of the crash is under the purview of Sacramento County’s park rangers, Wade said.

The National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration have also been notified, Wade said.

Due to maritime law, the cost of recovering and salvaging the plane will be forwarded along to its owner, Wade said.

The plane was hauled out of the water at about 3:40 p.m. As of about 4 p.m., a handful of emergency responders and hauling crews remained on scene, still working to pull the plane up from the sand onto the boat ramp.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration registry, the plane that crashed was an amateur-built Progressive Aerodyne SeaRey, a single-engine amphibious plane, aka “flying boat.” The registry classifies it as “experimental.” The plane was manufactured and registered in 2007; its registered owner is a Napa resident.

The aircraft’s wings carried insignias of the United States Army Air Service, a World War I-era aerial warfare branch and precursor to the U.S. Air Force that was active 1918 to 1926. However, the top of the wings also read “USN,” an abbreviation for the U.S. Navy.

The plane had shattered windows and visible damage to its engine and front cockpit. However, most of its fuselage, wings and front wheels appeared intact, with a few small holes dripping water.

No other information was immediately available about the plane’s history or its occupants.

This story was originally published January 2, 2019 at 1:03 PM.