A large US Navy spy plane that crashed into a Hawaii bay with an endangered coral reef has been recovered two weeks later.
The P-8A Poseidon that was used for surveillance, reconnaissance and intelligence gathering missed the landing strip at Marine Corps Base Hawaii and crashed into Kaneohe Bay on November 20.
None of the nine people aboard the spy plane were injured in the crash in the northern coast of Oahu. But the incident raised fears that the coral reefs and marine life including hammerhead sharks could be hurt.
The plane was removed by military and civilian experts who followed ‘meticulous planning’ for the operation, stated the Navy on Sunday. The effort began around 6.30am on Saturday and took 13 hours.
First, they got the plane afloat in a position adjacent to the runway and then lifted it piece by piece out of the bay.
‘Our team went through a detailed planning process to develop the best course of action to get the P-8 out of the bay as quickly and as safely as possible,’ stated the on-scene commander, Rear Adm Kevin Lenox.
‘Most of the day was spent making small adjustments to the roller bags and the aircraft position to minimize impact to the coral band adjacent to shore. At times it took us an hour to move the aircraft five feet.’
The last part of the aircraft to be pulled out was the nose wheel, around 7pm.
Video footage had showed the plane’s tires on top of at least two parts of the coral reel on the ocean floor. Military officials had not previously given an exact timeline for when the aircraft would be removed.
The operation costed an estimated $1.5million, according to the Navy. About $200,000 of that amount was used up as of Friday, a Navy spokesperson told CBS News.
Nearly half of the fuel loaded inside the aircraft was removed within a week of the crash. It had roughly 2,000 gallons of fuel upon landing in the bay.
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