Small plane tumbles into ocean but pilot’s quick thinking averts disaster

His training saved the day.

A quick-thinking pilot’s training kicked in when his single-engine plane lost power over a popular North Carolina beach — prompting a dramatic caught-on-video crash landing in the surf.

“At some point the engine started to lose power,” pilot Mark Finkelstein told WRAL-TV News following the watery Saturday evening landing off the shore of Oak Island. “At a certain point the engine just stopped all together and the propeller just stopped.

“And at that point it was very clear that I was supposed to be making a landing in the water,” he told the outlet. “I was focused on the training and what I needed to do… I just focused on what I needed to do.”

The small plane, a Jabiru J230-D, was only in the air for 13 minutes after taking off from nearby Cape Fear for a scheduled short flight over the popular beach before things went wrong around 7:30 p.m., according to a report by WNCN-TV News.

Footage shows the small plane splashing down in the water as bystanders look on from the beach.

Rescuers quickly converge on the damaged plane and are seen plucking Finkelstein to safety, according to the footage. He told WRAL that he miraculously only suffered a cut to his leg, and no one on the ground was hurt.

“I feel very, very fortunate,” the shaken but unharmed pilot said. “When I see the damage to the plane and to think that there was virtually no damage to me.

“I was so fortunate that the impact didn’t injure me, and double fortunate that the Oak Island water rescue folks got to me so quickly. I mean, that was huge. That was the key to the whole thing.”