1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:04,000 I'm Phil Owens and I fly aerial tours of Acadia National Park in Maine. 2 00:00:04,000 --> 00:00:06,460 [Upbeat music] 3 00:00:06,460 --> 00:00:08,960 [propeller on plane start up] 4 00:00:08,960 --> 00:00:10,820 [plane engine on take off] 5 00:00:10,940 --> 00:00:11,900 And I serve. 6 00:00:12,400 --> 00:00:14,680 I'm a crew chief in the Virginia Air National Guard. 7 00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:19,620 I'm responsible for ensuring safe operations of all systems on the F-22 Raptor. 8 00:00:20,900 --> 00:00:24,620 The guard is part-time and that works well for me because I love flying this plane. 9 00:00:25,820 --> 00:00:29,039 So a tour pilot, we greet them at the front gate, we load them up in the plane. 10 00:00:29,040 --> 00:00:33,460 You know, take them for a ride just around Bar Harbor Maine and around Acadia National Park area. 11 00:00:33,800 --> 00:00:35,640 This is my first commercial flying job. 12 00:00:36,060 --> 00:00:40,380 I joined the Air National Guard at 17, did drills throughout my senior year of high school. 13 00:00:40,820 --> 00:00:46,500 Then after tech school, I used my education benefits to get a aviation degree 14 00:00:46,500 --> 00:00:48,500 as well as my commercial pilot's license. 15 00:00:48,500 --> 00:00:49,540 [Upbeat music ends] 16 00:00:49,540 --> 00:00:53,880 [Pilot chatter, aircraft noise] 17 00:00:54,500 --> 00:00:55,540 He had seconds... 18 00:00:55,540 --> 00:00:56,460 [dramatic music] 19 00:00:56,460 --> 00:00:59,220 to make decisions and they had to be good decisions. 20 00:00:59,720 --> 00:01:03,640 Well, we're flying over here in Maine. You got a lot of water and a lot of national parks 21 00:01:03,640 --> 00:01:09,030 so not too many good landing spots, in the case of an engine failure, but 22 00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:11,560 I was able to find a swamp or marsh. 23 00:01:12,520 --> 00:01:15,720 Kind of flared as much as I could to keep that airspeed low. 24 00:01:16,000 --> 00:01:19,400 So it wasn't too, too abrupt of an impact but, you know, 25 00:01:19,880 --> 00:01:21,720 You definitely felt it in your seat there. a type of aircraft I 26 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:25,640 A type of aircraft I fly here is a tail wheel or tail dragger. 27 00:01:25,920 --> 00:01:27,640 So the two wheels are up front. 28 00:01:28,000 --> 00:01:32,399 And so once those kind of finally set down to that marsh, the aircraft flipped over 29 00:01:32,400 --> 00:01:33,960 onto the top wing there. 30 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:37,480 So after we flipped over, 31 00:01:37,480 --> 00:01:41,440 of course I unbuckled there and kind of checked on the passengers up front of me. 32 00:01:41,440 --> 00:01:43,000 There were two passengers that day. 33 00:01:43,680 --> 00:01:46,880 You know I looked at both of them and didn't see any blood or major injuries. 34 00:01:47,520 --> 00:01:48,960 And they both told me they were okay. 35 00:01:49,960 --> 00:01:54,160 He had very little time in the biplane when this happened. 36 00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:58,480 And he was steady. He was cool. 37 00:01:59,000 --> 00:02:02,400 Couldn't have done a better job if you had to. Did a great job. 38 00:02:02,880 --> 00:02:07,200 I kind of told the passengers to, you know, hold on and I'd get him down safely. 39 00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:09,000 And, you know, grateful I did. 40 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:12,600 [plane engine, wind] 41 00:02:12,600 --> 00:02:16,580 [dramatic instrumental music]