Sydnie and I had never met, but that鈥檚 normal when you鈥檙e putting in hours. When we took off, all signs were normal. After we climbed to 2,000 feet, the plane started to rumble a bit, but it wasn鈥檛 enough of a concern to turn back. After about an hour in the air鈥攁t the widest part of the channel between Maui and Kona鈥攖he right engine went out. Sydnie got on the radio to tell air traffic control that we may need assistance. Then the left engine went. We declared emergency right away. We were basically gliding.
We weren鈥檛 that high鈥擨 think about 3,000 feet鈥攚hich doesn鈥檛 give you much time. I remember looking out at the ocean as we were descending鈥攊t just got bigger and bigger and bigger. I don鈥檛 know how we didn鈥檛 die on impact. We were probably approaching at 70, 80 miles per hour, and the plane only had lap belts, no shoulder straps. Sydnie said that she landed it like a regular plane on the ground. She did an amazing job.
As we were getting our bearings, the water was already halfway up the dashboard and gushing in the door. We exited onto the wing and next thing you know, the plane is gone. But I wasn鈥檛 really panicking yet, because I was thinking, We just survived a plane crash, and the Coast Guard knows where we went down.
We crashed at about 3:15 p.m. and saw the first rescue aircraft about an hour and a half later. There were a few planes circling, and then a couple of helicopters. But the water was really rough鈥攕ix-foot whitecaps鈥攕o they couldn鈥檛 see us. One plane flew right over us. After the sixth or seventh pass, I started to lose hope. Then the air cartridge on my life vest fell off and it deflated.
We realized we had to do this on our own. The good thing about the Big Island is that it鈥檚 got two large volcanoes, both nearly 14,000 feet. So even though we were about 25 miles away when we landed, we could see land. By the time we decided to swim it was dark, but we could see lights on the island. We just switched gears and agreed to keep each other positive.
After swimming for a while, I was getting to a point where I couldn鈥檛 even keep my head above water. This was my lowest moment. Then Sydnie noticed something on my vest鈥擨 hadn鈥檛 pulled the toggle to inflate one side. I was like, Holy shit, I鈥檓 back!
Then Sydnie swam into a massive jellyfish. She screamed in pain and rolled onto her back, her eyes closed. She was breathing heavily, and she wasn鈥檛 responding. She slowly came back, and then she just switched on. She said, 鈥淲e gotta get outta here.鈥
At first light, we got the sense of how far we鈥檇 swum. It was amazing. We even began talking about the first meal we were going to eat after we made it to shore. That鈥檚 when we saw the shark, about ten feet below us, probably six or seven feet long. It made a big slow circle around us, like you see in movies. It stuck around for about 30 minutes and then disappeared.
Eventually, we saw a Coast Guard helicopter, but it flew past. Then I heard one behind us and, without even looking, I knew it was coming for us. Once the guy got down to us, he said, 鈥淢an, we are so happy to see you.鈥
The crazy thing is, we were probably five miles from shore. We would have arrived around sunset, but we definitely would have made it on our own.
As told to Will Cockrell.