Plane Was "Flying Low" When It Impacted Lake

A man fishing on Utah's Lake Powell caught some serious fish Sunday morning, in the form of Olympic wrestling champion Rulon Gardner.

Gardner was a passenger in a Cirrus SR22 (file photo of type, below) with two other men from Utah -- pilot Randy Brooks, and his brother Leslie -- when it crashed in Lake Powell on Saturday, Garfield County public information officer Becki Bronson told ANN. Bronson added the plane was "flying low to the water" when it impacted the lake.

The three men were able to exit the aircraft before it sank, and swam for more than an hour in frigid water before spending the night without shelter, according to Bronson.

After they were discovered by a fisherman on the lake, the three men were initially taken to Bullfrog Marina where National Park Service Ranger Medics examined them. Instead of an AIRVAC helicopter, the three opted for Brooks' son-in-law to fly them to American Fork for further medical evaluation. All suffered hypothermic injuries to their feet, but no life-threatening injuries were reported.

"It takes only about 30 minutes for someone swimming in 44 degree water to start suffering the effects of hypothermia, so the fact that they swam in it for an hour, not to mention surviving the plane crash and the night without fire or shelter, is pretty amazing," said Steven Luckesen, a district ranger at Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. "If these guys were a cat with nine lives, they just used up three of them."

The exact location of the crash is still uncertain, and is believed to be near the Garfield County/San Juan County border running through Lake Powell in Good Hope Bay. An investigation is currently underway.

Rulon Gardner is a two-time Olympic champion and three time national champion in Greco-Roman wrestling. At the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Gardner made history with a win over then-undefeated Alexandre Karelin, in what was dubbed the 'Miracle of the Mat'.

On Monday, Gardner -- who also survived a bad motorcycle crash in 2004, and being stranded during a 2002 snowmobile expedition -- told ESPN's Dan Patrick the plane was flying approximately 30 feet off the water just before the crash. He believes the left main landing gear hit the water first, and caused the plane to cartwheel.

In an earlier interview on NBC's Today Show, Gardner said, "We kinda came down then we skipped once then hit a second time. That's when we dug in and the propeller stopped. That just spun us, then we just kinda went nose down into the water."

FMI: www.faa.gov