Plane crashes into water at Lake Travis
Authorities said a red biplane took off from Austin Bergstrom International Airport and crashed 30 miles away into Lake Travis near Windy Point and Bob Wentz Park.
Witnesses at the lake said the plane looked like it was out of a World War One documentary.
Luckily, all three people inside were able to make it out without any serious injuries.
“I was surfing nearby and suddenly I heard a big thunder. I thought it was a thundercloud because, you know, it is cloudy, so I was like, oh I need to take my sail down,” said Saket Priyadarshi who was windsurfing nearby.
Around 4p.m. Saturday, people enjoying the holiday weekend at Lake Travis found themselves in a scary situation.
“Then it made the noise again, but it was like an engine noise too the second time. And so I looked up and there was this airplane up there and I was like, that's weird cause I've never heard a plane make that kind of noise,” said Priyadarshi
That's because it wasn't the kind of noise a plane is supposed to make and it wasn't long after that that Priyadarshi found out what was happening.
“This thing literally just went down,” said Priyadarshi.
“It hit and within 30 seconds or a minute the whole thing kind of flipped over in the water and started to sink and we were like, ‘oh, well obviously that wasn't supposed to happen.’ So I actually ran up to the ranger station and notified them,” said Taylor Mansfield who was at Bob Wentz Park Saturday.
Before Mansfield even made it to the ranger station, several people in the water were already on scene to help.
“Within five minutes I’d say any of the motorized boats that were around pretty much immediately went out there to try to help them. And then, I'd say within five or ten minutes, the police boats were out there and the plane itself sunk within two minutes, probably dipped below the surface of the water and was gone,” said Mansfield.
“I was amazed everyone was helping out. I was thinking there would be fire or anything like that, but it just went down so fast, it's amazing,” Priyadarshi said.
Police boats marked the location where the plane crashed with an orange buoy and waited for the FAA to get there to investigate.
“I was actually nervous for them because I don't know what speed they hit the water at, but at certain speeds water’s like concrete. So I didn't know how injured they were,” said Priyadarshi.
Austin-Travis County EMS said all three people on board got off the plane without any serious injuries and none of them required a medical transport to area hospitals.