Arrow-right Camera
The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Plane recovered from Spokane River

The wreckage of a 1996 Piper Malibu flown by Lyndon Amestoy and Richard Runyon is pulled from the Spokane River on Saturday, May 9, 2015, near Felts Field in Spokane, Wash. (Tyler Tjomsland)
Using airbags, boats, divers, a crane and lots of time, workers on Saturday brought to shore most of the plane that crashed into the Spokane River. The Piper Malibu crashed Thursday afternoon not long after taking off from Felts Field. Both people inside died. Over several hours on Saturday, divers attached the fuselage of the plane to airbags, and a boat slowly pulled it to shore while under water. Once close to shore a crane pulled it from the water just before 2 p.m. The boats and divers made more trips to recover other parts left in the water, including at least one of the wings. Keith Holloway, a spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board, said the agency has one official on scene and will soon take over the investigation. “Our role begins when the aircraft has been recovered,” he said. Two Department of Ecology workers monitored the recovery. The plane had a 120-gallon fuel tank, but it was not certain how much fuel was in the plane, said Andy Wineke, a spokesman for the department. “Most the fuel seems to be getting captured by the pads and booms,” Wineke said. “There’s a little bit of a sheen that’s getting away.” Wineke said that the department hired a company to place the pads and booms into the water after the crash on Thursday. Ecology officials no longer are concerned about a cap placed on the bottom of the river to prevent PCBs from escaping into the river. The plane did not land on the cap, which starts closer to the Upriver Dam, Wineke said.