Last Sunday morning Scouts of Troop 150 from West Salem, Oregon, were breaking camp along the shore of Marion Lake in Oregon’s Willamette National Forest when they spotted a Cessna 172B that was clearly in trouble.
Their leader, Matt Matthews, said that as the Skyhawk cleared a ridge and settled toward the surface of the lake, one scout said, “I think he’s crashing, not landing.” The scouts watched as the pilot, 28-year-old Trevor Schultz executed what the scouts and hiker Ben Kamph described as a perfect water landing about 200 yards from shore. The airplane quickly sank in shallow water, but Schultz and his three passengers were uninjured and easily swam to the beach.
