A sophisticated piece of equipment called a forehead was used to find the plane that crashed into Lake Mendocino last week.
“The diver found it by banging into it with his head,” said Kenny Purcell, a Redwood Valley resident hired by the owner of an Ultralight aircraft who landed in the lake when the plane lost power shortly after taking off from the Ukiah Municipal Airport on April 29. “There was zero visibility underwater, so the diver couldn’t see the bright red color of the plane even when he was standing on it.”
Reportedly facing a deadline of Monday to remove the plane or face a hefty fine, Purcell said the owner, identified by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office as Harvey Flinn, 71, of Potter Valley, began searching for people to hire. Purcell said he had never pulled a plane out of a lake before, but was contacted about the job because he had extensive experience pulling off-road vehicles out of jams.
Purcell began the plane retrieval by hiring another man with extensive diving experience, Napa resident Mike Myers, who at first struggled to find the plane because “it was not where the pilot thought it was.” Based on where he swam out and initial searches involving a magnet, Purcell said the pilot thought the plane was in a certain section of the lake under about 30 feet of water. However, Myers eventually found the plane in another section of the lake under what they estimate to be at least 60 feet of water.
“Mike attached a ski rope, which is 75 feet long, to the plane, and it barely reached the surface of the lake once tied to the plane,” said Purcell, explaining that after subtracting a few feet for the rope’s handle and other calculations, he estimates that the plane was lying “wheels up” at the bottom of the reservoir under “at least 60 feet, maybe even 70 feet” of water.
Purcell said Myers got a decent-sized gash on his head after hitting the plane but was fine to continue diving, though he was joined on the job by his wife, Niki, also a very experienced diver.
Once they located the plane, Purcell said the group began the complicated process of pulling the plane up while simultaneously flipping it over so its wings were on top when it reached the surface. To accomplish that, Purcell said Myers attached heavy-duty inner tubes (more like truck tires than the inner tubes people float down rivers on) to the plane, then Purcell filled them with air using a compressor.
As the plane began to float up, Purcell said Myers moved the tubes while he inflated and deflated them strategically to maneuver the plane to the top of the lake. Once it was floating, Purcell said the plane was pulled to the edge of the water with the help of two men in a small motorboat.
“Once all the water emptied out, I’d say the plane only weighed about 500 pounds,” he said, explaining that it took about 10 people, mostly volunteers, to push the plane across the dry lake bottom to a boat ramp where it could be disassembled and driven away Sunday evening.
When asked how much he would be billing Flinn for the removal of the plane, Purcell said he was still calculating his charges, but that it would likely be “significantly less than $10,000.”
When asked Tuesday about the pilot being ordered to remove the plane or face a fine, representatives from both the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which operates the Coyote Valley Dam that creates the reservoir, and the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, which was first investigating the crash-landing, said they had no knowledge of the pilot facing either a deadline or a hefty fine regarding the plane’s removal.
When asked if the plane had leaked any fuel or other liquids and if the lake’s water had been tested for contaminants after the crash, Supervising Ranger Poppy Lozoff said she could not speak to any additional water quality tests that had been performed, but added that the lake’s water is tested regularly. She said California Department of Fish and Wildlife personnel had responded, but she could not speak to any tests they might have completed.
Both the Army Corps and the MCSO reported having neither the equipment nor the personnel available to remove the plane from the lake.