The seriously injured survivor of a Lynn Canal plane crash is rapidly recovering in Seattle, her family said Tuesday, as the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the cause of the crash continues.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Sylvia Hess, sister of Martha Mackowiak, said Mackowiak could be released from the intensive-care unit of Seattle\u2019s Harborview Medical Center as soon as that day.<\/p>\n
Michael Mackowiak was the pilot of the Cessna 180 that crashed into Lynn Canal near Eldred Rock on Nov. 4. He said the other people on board \u2014 himself and two juveniles \u2014 are doing well. <\/p>\n
\u201cOther than saying \u2018That\u2019s just way too close,\u2019 we\u2019re doing pretty good,\u201d he said by phone from Harborview, where he is monitoring Martha\u2019s care.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up in Alaska and have been in small airplanes all my life,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve never been in this.\u201d<\/p>\n
One week ago, Mackowiak was flying from Juneau to Haines when the motor of the single-engine Cessna lost power.<\/p>\n
According to the preliminary accident report completed by the NTSB on Monday, Mackowiak noticed the Cessna\u2019s fuel gauges were operating incorrectly as the plane flew past Eagle Beach.<\/p>\n
He told investigators he had filled the plane\u2019s wing-mounted fuel tanks before takeoff, but the gauges showed empty on both tanks. As he tapped the gauges, the right tank increased between 1\/4 and 3\/8 full.<\/p>\n
\u201cConvinced of an electrical malfunction, the flight continued towards Haines,\u201d the NTSB report states. \u201cShortly thereafter, the engine lost all power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mackowiak tried pumping the engine primer \u2014 which injects fuel directly into the engine\u2019s cylinders \u2014 but while the propeller\u2019s speed increased, the engine didn\u2019t fully start.<\/p>\n
He started searching for a safe place to land, but the beaches near Eldred Rock are stony, and he elected to ditch in the water just offshore. As the plane descended, Mackowiak\u2019s mayday calls were picked up by a passing Alaska Seaplanes aircraft, which passed the message to Juneau.<\/p>\n
During the ditching, the airplane nosed over, ending upside-down in the water. Mackowkiak\u2019s foot was briefly caught in the airplane, but he and the plane\u2019s passengers made it onto the plane\u2019s wing before it began to sink. <\/p>\n
They were in the water for 10 or 15 minutes before reaching shore, the NTSB investigation found.<\/p>\n
A Temsco helicopter pulled all four from the beach and delivered three to the airport, where they were subsequently taken to Bartlett Regional Hospital. Martha Mackowiak, the most seriously injured, was taken directly to the hospital and subsequently medevaced to Seattle.<\/p>\n
In an email, Michael Mackowiak said Martha\u2019s heart stopped during the ordeal and everyone suffered cuts and scratches. \u201cI ended up with a little bit of frostbite on my right foot\u201d after losing a shoe, he said.<\/p>\n
In an email, he said he wanted to thank everyone involved in the rescue \u2014 medical teams at Bartlett and Harborview, the firefighters who performed CPR on Martha, and the helicopter crews involved.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are overwhelmed with the exceeding kindness and compassion our friends have shown us,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The seriously injured survivor of a Lynn Canal plane crash is rapidly recovering in Seattle, her family said Tuesday, as the National Transportation Safety Board investigation into the cause of the crash continues. On Tuesday, Sylvia Hess, sister of Martha Mackowiak, said Mackowiak could be released from the intensive-care unit of Seattle\u2019s Harborview Medical Center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-20612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20612"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=20612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}