The recovery of a U.S. Navy maritime patrol aircraft from Hawaii's Kaneohe Bay, where it crash-landed last month, can now be viewed in a timelapse video.
The footage, released last Friday by the U.S. Marine Corps, condensed the all-day salvage operation from December 2-3 into under three minutes.
The P-8A Poseidon submarine hunter overshot the tarmac and splashed down into the bay's shallow waters on November 20, some 20 yards from the runway at the Marine Corps air station on Oahu. None of the crew—three pilots, two officers and four other enlisted personnel—was injured, the Navy said.
In the video, salvage crews were seen deploying inflatable cylinders beneath the fuselage to provide buoyancy. The partially submerged aircraft was then gradually rolled backward on the bags. As night fell, the plane was hauled up over shoreline and back onto the tarmac.
"The team worked smoothly through the weekend under ideal conditions, and everything happened according to the plan," Rear Adm. Kevin Lenox, appointed by the Navy as incident commander, told reporters.
Although precautionary environmental containment booms were immediately deployed around the partially submerged plane, its fluid-holding systems were found to be intact, and no fuel leaked into the bay following the crash, Lenox said at a press briefing prior to the recovery operation.
Local groups in Hawaii had expressed concerns about potential environmental damage to the area's coral reef.
The Navy acknowledged the concerns and carried out several days of assessments. The plane crash caused minor damage to coral, it said, noting that the service took great pains to keep further environmental damage to a minimum.
Navy mobile diving and salvage crews on November 26 extracted most of the P-8's 2,000 gallons of fuel to lighten the load in order to facilitate the plane's removal.
Experts, sailors, Marines and interagency partners "from the state of Hawaii and the continental U.S." labored "around the clock" to remove the P-8 from Kaneohe Bay, the Marine Corps said.
Navy officials said the spy plane was largely intact and could be restored and eventually returned to service, although it did not say when.
The Navy's Third Fleet did not respond to Newsweek's written request for comment by publication time.
The crew of the crashed plane was from Washington state-based Patrol Squadron-4, also known as the "Skinny Dragons."
Based on the design of the Boeing 737, the P-8 is a multirole aircraft used for reconnaissance, anti-submarine warfare and search and rescue.
Marine Corps Air Station Kaneohe Bay, which is located within Marine Corps Base Hawaii, is responsible for repairs and operations and contributes to the overall readiness of U.S. military forces in the Pacific region.
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Micah McCartney is a reporter for Newsweek based in Taipei, Taiwan. He covers U.S.-China relations, East Asian and Southeast Asian ... Read more
