LANGLEY, Wash. (AP) — One person was killed and nine people remained missing after a float plane crashed in the Puget Sound in Washington state on Sunday, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
The agency said via Twitter the plane was flying from Friday Harbor, a popular tourist destination in the San Juan Islands, to Renton, Washington. Previously the Coast Guard had said the plane was flying to Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
The crash reported at 3:11 p.m. Sunday happened in Mutiny Bay, off Whidbey Island, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) northwest of Seattle.
The Coast Guard said one body was recovered and nine people remain missing.
The Coast Guard said four Coast Guard vessels, a rescue helicopter and an aircraft were involved in the search, along with first responders from area rescue and law enforcement agencies.
The cause of the crash is unknown, authorities said.
The Seattle Times reports that the National Transportation Safety Board says the plane was a de Havilland Canada DHC-3 Turbine Otter. The aircraft is a single-engine, propeller plane.
Float planes, planes that have pontoons allowing them to land on water, are a common sight around the Puget Sound, an inlet of the Pacific Ocean. There are multiple, daily flights between the Seattle area and the San Juan Islands, a scenic archipelago northwest of Seattle that draws tourists from around the world.
The aircraft, which also fly between Seattle and Vancouver, British Columbia, frequently fly through Seattle and land in a lake not far from the city’s iconic Space Needle.
Renton, where authorities say the flight was headed Sunday, is at the southern tip of Lake Washington about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of Seattle.
In May 2019, six people were killed in a midair collision between two Alaska sightseeing planes. The Ketchikan-based floatplanes carrying passengers from the same cruise ship, the Royal Princess, were returning from tours of Misty Fjords National Monument.
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