Despite a Damaged Windscreen and Waterlogged Plane, Aviator Escapes Without Major Injury

An Icon A5 crashed into Lake LBJ, with no injuries reported. 

The small aircraft was damaged but the pilot escaped unscathed. Local fire chief Tim Campbell told the local paper that “A gentleman from the Shirley Williams Airport in Kingsland, where he keeps his plane, was landing on Lake LBJ,” clarifying that the aircraft was not forced on the water, but intended to land on it. "It’s the kind of plane that lands on both water and land, and he forgot to retract the landing gear for a water landing.”

When the aircraft gear made contact with the water, they caught and pulled the nose sharply downward, tucking down and breaking the windshield and blasting the pilot with water. A bystander managed to get the pilot out and tie a rope the the aircraft to drag it ashore before it sank. Not long after, the responders from the Granite Shoals Fire and Rescue, the Granite Shoals and Marble Falls police departments, and Granite Shoals EMS arrived on scene and found surprisingly little to do. "We didn't have to do a lot," said Campbell. "We used some of our ropes to tie it off so it wouldn’t float off and be an obstacle out in the middle of the lake.” 

Campbell said the aircraft was taken away aboard a flatbed within a day or so, and the case details have been handed to the Texas Department of Public Safety. The landing gear issue will be of particular interest to the FAA, like any other gear-up landing would be, but how common such events are in the Icon A5 could inform future developments in Icon products or seaplanes as a whole. 

FMI: www.iconaircraft.com