2 swim for safety after ditching small plane in Canyon Lake

NEW BRAUNFELS (AP) — A pilot and his passenger swam to safety Tuesday after the two men made an emergency landing in their small plane in a Central Texas lake.

The ditching happened about 10 a.m. in Canyon Lake, in the hills about 35 miles (56.33 kilometers) northeast of San Antonio.

Witness Ed Sanford said he was showing his girlfriend his old lakefront neighborhood when he heard a sputtering engine as they saw the single-engine Cessna flying low. The plane disappeared below the tree line, then Sanford heard the plane hit the water.

“I’m no pilot, but he did well. It looked like he was trying to avoid going into the neighborhood, where there’s houses everywhere,” Sanford told the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung.

One of the men suffered non-life-threatening injuries. The other was uninjured. Robert Mike, Canyon Lake's assistant fire chief, said the aircraft sank into 15 feet to 18 feet of water.