Featured Image Credit: KITV/YouTube
Topics: Travel, World News, Hawaii
Aisha Nozari
Unbelievable footage that shows an airplane filling with water after it crashed into the ocean will make sure you never doze off during the cabin crew’s safety briefing again.
Ferdinand Puentes’s GoPro was rolling when the flight he was on crash-landed into the ocean off Hawaii in December 2013. During the crash, one passenger sadly died.
The plane lost power shortly after taking off, and as Puentes panned his camera out of the window, the ocean could be seen getting closer and closer as the plane rushing towards it, before making impact with the water’s surface.
Watch Puentes’s unbelievable footage below:
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Speaking a month after the incident to Hawaii News Now, Puentes said: "Physically I'm fine. Emotionally I'm still a little bit shaken.”
Going into detail about the moment the aircraft started dropping towards the ocean, he explained: “The engine made a noise and all the bells and whistles started. I just turned [the GoPro] back on. I had to make sure it was on.”
He even continued to film as he exited the plane and jumped into the ocean, where he held onto the plane’s wing for dear life before it became totally submerged.
The plane’s captain, Clyde Kawasaki, could also be seen in Puentes’s footage with blood pouring down his face as he told the passengers to move away from the aircraft.
"In the water it's hard to describe. There were so many things happening. [You think] is it for real? Is this really happening?" Puentes said.
"A lot of things were just racing [by]. Pretty much everything [happens] on instinct. Just trying to survive.
"I still have a hard time sleeping at night,” he added.
Puentes, a construction worker who had been working on St. Francis Church in Kalaupapa and was flying back to Oahu, was still wearing his steel cap shoes when he launched himself into the water, and recalled them feeling like ‘lead weights’.
Thankfully, Puentes is also a spear fisherman, so was used to being in the water.
He was just 50 yards away from the shore when he and the other passengers were finally rescued.
Sadly, Hawaii's state health director, 65-year-old Loretta Fuddy, was not as lucky as Puentes and ended up being the accident’s only fatality.
Fuddy made it out of the sinking plane and could even be seen in Puentes’s video, but died after escaping. An autopsy determined Loretta Fuddy died of an irregular heartbeat from hyperventilating.
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