Floatplane crash in New Germany was 'like a James Bond movie'

A floatplane crash in a New Germany, N.S., lake that sent a man and a woman to hospital Tuesday looked like a scene out of an action movie, according to a witness.

"It looked like a fly caught in a spider web, essentially clipped the power lines and down the lake he went," Jillian Russell, a New Germany resident who witnessed the crash, said in an interview on Wednesday.

The plane was attempting to land on New Germany Lake, according to RCMP, when it hit power lines and crashed around 4:30 p.m. Russell said she had been outdoors watering her garden at the time.

"It was like a James Bond movie. It was a crash, I saw the lights, the fire coming out of the lines and a big bang and then a pop," she said.

After it happened, she went inside to call 911. When she got off the phone, she went over to the lake.

"At the same time, our neighbour, he was there and we were both trying to see if we could get in the water with the power lines being down," she said.

Russell said a friend of the pilot showed up a short time later and got in the lake to help after he learned it was safe.

"He just kind of threw everything and went into the water. It was kind of like a super-hero move," Russell said.

The friend told them the pilot and passenger were alive and conscious but injured, Russell said.

New Germany fire Chief Blair Lantz said when firefighters arrived they inflated a rescue boat, sent out crews with backboards and took the injured people to shore.

The pilot, he said, had cuts and bruises and a possible head injury, and was taken to hospital in Halifax by LifeFlight helicopter as a precaution. The woman suffered a broken leg and was taken to hospital in Halifax by ambulance, he said.

Lantz said the power lines run across the lake, and the crash caused a temporary outage.

The Northfield and Bridgewater fire departments also responded to the crash with rescue boats.

The military dispatched a Hercules aircraft and a Cormorant helicopter from Greenwood, N.S., circled around the site, but left after the fire department took over the scene.

Investigators have turned over the site to the pilot's insurance company.

On Wednesday, the plane was still out in the lake and it attracted a crowd of people.

The pilot's friend declined an interview, but he said he plans to remove the plane from the lake soon.

The friend said the pilot had been planning to visit him on Tuesday. He said the pilot had flown that route many times before.