Lexington, SC (WLTX) - It's not every day that you hear about a plane making a crash landing in a lake.
Four months ago, a man trying to land his amphibious planes near the Gilbert side of Lake Murray when he crashed. The pilot survived and Wednesday two Midlands divers recovered the plane.
"We do a lot of searching in Lake Murray there are a lot of things to find," said Stephen Franklin.
Midlands divers, Stephen Franklin and John Baker are familiar with the waters of Lake Murray and enjoy finding hidden treasures.
When they heard that a plane crashed in the lake back in April, they jumped at the opportunity to recover it.
"I heard about the aircraft crashing back in April and I was given a general location. From there I did some sonar scanning as I've done in the lake for the past few years and was able to find the plane after a few days."
The NTSB says that the pilot of the amphibian plane tried to make a landing on the lake when something went wrong with the planes gear.
The pilot only had minor injuries and survived the crash.
Franklin and Baker worked with the pilot's insurance company and the Atlanta Air Salvage company to recover the plan that was close to 130 feet under water.
"Sometimes the conditions would get better from time to time. We could only see up to 10 feet and it was about 52 degrees of water. The plane sat in the river bed right around 130 feet deep. We had issues of decompression on the dive and made it not one of the easiest dives," said Baker.
The two hooked the plane to a crane that was on a barge and it took two hours to pull it out the water.
"It was definitely a dangerous dive for us but within our limits it was enjoyable. "
Despite the challenges, recovering a plane is definitely something these two can check off their diving bucket list.
"Being the first to dive a wreck is kind of nice. Being the only ones to dive the wreck and being apart of the salvage and rescue process was very unique and rewarding. We had a good time. It was a blast."
