Seaplane Crash Washington: Every Person Aboard Accounted For After Water Landing

A seaplane carrying eleven people came down in the waters off Washington’s coast Thursday afternoon, triggering an international search and rescue effort involving American and Canadian agencies. Remarkably, everyone survived.

The aircraft, operated by Kenmore Air, made an emergency landing near Sucia Island in the San Juan Islands and caught fire. The U.S. Coast Guard confirmed to CNN that the pilot and all ten passengers were located and accounted for.

The Injuries

Not everyone escaped unharmed. Four people were taken to hospitals with serious injuries, according to a Kenmore Air spokesperson cited by CNN affiliate KING.

San Juan County Sheriff Eric Peter said one of those four was in critical condition when transported. He described the range of injuries across the group as including head trauma, fractures and lacerations.

The distribution of patients across facilities reflected the scale of the response:

• Six passengers taken to a hospital in Bellingham
• Four passengers transported to a hospital in Harbor
• The pilot taken to a hospital in Mount Vernon

Flight Path and Timeline

Kenmore Air laid out the sequence in a public statement.

The floatplane departed Lake Union in Seattle at 4:30 p.m., bound for Roche Harbor roughly 100 miles to the northwest. It went down approximately forty-five minutes into the flight.

The Coast Guard says the first reports reached them around 5:25 p.m. Assets were launched immediately, with the U.S. Navy, Canadian Coast Guard and local agencies joining the effort.

A Multi-Agency Response on the Water

Emergency dispatch recordings captured responders coordinating in real time. A Coast Guard helicopter was deployed alongside a Canadian Coast Guard hovercraft.

At one point a voice on the dispatch audio reports multiple vessels in the water. Later in the same recording, someone notes that two boats were carrying people who had been aboard the aircraft — an early indication that survivors were being pulled from the scene.

CNN has sought comment from Kenmore Air, the San Juan County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. Navy, the Canadian Coast Guard and the FAA.

The Airline Responds

Kenmore Air CEO David Gudgel expressed relief that everyone had been located, saying the company’s immediate priority is making sure passengers and the pilot receive proper care and support.

He added that the airline is cooperating fully with investigators and will release verified information as it becomes available.

The company canceled all scheduled flights for Friday, saying its team is concentrating on supporting passengers, the pilot, families, employees and the ongoing emergency response.

About Kenmore Air

Founded in 1946, Kenmore Air is the largest seaplane operator in the United States. The airline carries more than 90,000 passengers each year across scheduled service, sightseeing flights and charters.

Its Lake Union to San Juan Islands routes are a fixture of regional travel in the Pacific Northwest, connecting Seattle to island destinations that are otherwise reachable only by ferry or a long drive.

What Caused It Remains Unknown

No official explanation has been offered for why the pilot needed to put the aircraft down.

Weather conditions at the time were less than ideal. Winds were blowing from the south with ground-level gusts around 20 mph, and rain showers were moving into the area.

Whether those conditions contributed will be for investigators to determine. The FAA has been contacted regarding the incident, and a formal investigation is expected to examine the aircraft, the weather and the sequence of events leading to the landing.

Why the Outcome Matters

Eleven people were aboard an aircraft that landed hard on open water and then caught fire. All eleven were recovered alive.

That result depended on several things going right at once: the pilot managing a controlled water landing, the alert reaching the Coast Guard within an hour of departure, and a coordinated response that brought helicopters, hovercraft and multiple boats to a remote island location quickly.

Sucia Island sits in the northern San Juans, well away from major population centers. The involvement of Canadian assets alongside American ones reflects how close the crash site was to the international boundary — and how routine cross-border cooperation has become in these waters.

For now, the focus stays on the four seriously injured passengers, including the one taken away in critical condition. The investigation will proceed on its own timeline, and answers about the cause are unlikely to arrive quickly.