A seaplane that landed and flipped over in Lake Monomonac on Tuesday night has been recovered.
The plane was pulled from the lake on Friday around 3:30 p.m. , according to onlookers.
“It was pretty tricky,” said Wally Wright, owner of Wally’s Tree and Crane of Jaffrey, who offered his National Crane for the operation. “I couldn’t wait to do it, because it’s not the kind of thing you get to do every day. I’ve done some crazy stuff, but that’s the first and probably last time I’ll do a plane.”
It took crews about 67 hours to pull the plane from the water. The fire department attempted to pull the plane to shore on Tuesday night, but the plane got stuck on the underbed of the lake. Wednesday, a friend of the plane’s owner flew from Maine to Silver Ranch in Jaffrey to help out, but attempts throughout the day were unsuccessful.
Once Wright’s crane was on the scene, a team of scuba divers helped to get the plane hooked up, and then Wright began the slow task of lifting the plane and turning it upright – which took about four hours in itself, he said.
“The wings were full of water, so we just had to go little by little,” said Wright. “We picked it up in the air, flipped it over, and set it back down on the pontoons in the water.”
The crane was able to successfully extract the plane without further damaging it, said Wright.
The fire department was initially called to the northwestern end of the lake around 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday, after witnesses reported that a seaplane had attempted to land on the lake with its landing gear extended.
The plane hit the water, bounced, and flipped over.
The plane is registered to Earl Robinson, 57, who owns property on the lake.