[UPDATE 5:58 p.m.: All Recovered, One Dead ] Plane Crashes at Shelter Cove, Two Rescued From Water
At about 3:25 p.m. today, Sunday, August 17, a plane crashed off 871 Lower Pacific Drive in Shelter Cove.
Authorities have confirmed that one aircraft went down, leaving two people in the water. Emergency radio traffic indicated that both were rescued and brought to land and were being brought to the boat ramp on Machi Road shortly before 4 p.m.
One of the individuals was reported to have extreme heart issues. A REACH medical helicopter is responding with an estimated time of arrival around 4:30 p.m.
This is a developing story, and more information will be provided as details become available.
UPDATE 4:37 p.m.: According to scanner traffic, one is confirmed to be deceased and the other being transported to trauma center.
UPDATE 4:54 p.m.: Reportedly this is a small yellow plane though that has not been confirmed officially. However, Lt. Jesse Taylor of the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Department gave us confirmation of what we had learned earlier that one person “died on scene.”
UPDATE 5:58 p.m.: Shelter Cove Fire Chief Nick Pape told us, “[O]ur Paid Duty Officer responded and quickly located the area that the plane went down, assumed incident commander and then guided our fully volunteer Ocean Rescue Team to the location where they pulled both the victims out of the water with our rescue boat and jet ski…All parties were recovered from the water per survivor. Unfortunately there was one confirmed fatality.”
Note that in July of 2023 there was a similar plane crash. The plane crashed off Little Black Sands Beach and the two occupants managed to get out of the craft before it began to sink. Read more and see the video of the crash here.
Update:
- HCSO Provides Details on Fatal Plane Crash in Shelter Cove Yesterday
- Santa Rosa Man Identified as Victim in Shelter Cove Plane Crash
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There’s still a person missing in the water the coast guard has reported
The Coast Guard is gone. The Reach Helicopter has landed. Unfortunately one of the occupants did not make it. So sad…
According to Chief Pape, all occupants were recovered however one is deceased.
Ocean rescue launched again around 5:50pm with a sheriff. They stayed in area of crash and further north for 30-45 minutes. Anyone know why?
I believe they went back to find the plane. I’ll hopefully have more answers tomorrow.
I guess it was for investigation. Sheriff was shown location etc. Sorry I had my conspiracy hat on yesterday haha! Thank you!
Unanswered questions make all of us start speculating. That’s why we work so hard to answer questions.
After Reach had flown out of the Cove, C6603 on FlightRadar24 went back out, circled around looking for plane. Ocean rescue launching again could mean CG found it.
Did y’all not post my comment?
In order to cut down on spam, new commenters posts are held until I have a chance to check them. You have never commented under this name before
Plane crash victim identified…
https://lostcoastoutpost.com/2025/aug/20/48-year-old-santa-rosa-man-identified-deceased-pil/
’48-Year-Old Santa Rosa Man Identified as Deceased Pilot in Last Weekend’s Shelter Cove Plane Crash’
Holy horse-feathers ! Looks like the Shelter Cove Fire Department was busy (as usual) !
Another airplane crash. Thankfully the two individuals were rescued and brought ashore. I pray that the person who has an extreme heart issue will make it to the hospital via REACH medical chopper. It is my guess that maybe landing in the ocean saved their lives. There are a lot of areas around Shelter Cove that are not plane friendly meaning no safe place to land. The article did not say, but I think probably folks from the Shelter Cove Volunteer Fire Department are the ones who rescued the two. They can launch and travel quickly on their jet skis.
Thank you, Kym. We heard the SCVFD siren heading down the hill and rushed out to make sure it wasn’t a fire. Our heart goes out to all and gratitude to the responders.
Yellow plane means probably a Piper Cub J3
3 people cannot fit into a piper j 3 cub
Thanks for Verickfying that Carl
We have a J3 that lives in Garberville. It brings the tragedy a little closer to home. Fingers crossed.
J3s don’t do very good in the wind. I wonder if that was a factor.
Not necessarily I know a local pilot that has a yellow Harmon rocket
3 people cannot fit into a piper j 3. Cub
Thanks Fred! There were only two. But, at least now I know it wasn’t you!
How is it that the plane ended up on land with the passengers in the ocean?
The airplane is in the water.
How is it that you read this article and took from it that the plane was on land and the passengers were in the ocean?
The photo at the top of the article was misleading. A lot of people thought it was a photo of this actual crash and it shows the plane upside down, on the land. I believe, however, this photo is not of this crash. It is just being used as a cover photo for the article.
That’s not considered a photo, it’s considered a Graphic slug – a ready-made graphic paired with a recurring type of story (like “PLANE CRASH,” “FIRE,” “ELECTION RESULTS”). We use multiple of these per day as do most news organizations. Elements that would tell you it wasn’t a photo of the actual scene are large words superimposed on the image and the cartoon style of the image.
And photos typically have captions but the image at the top of this article isn’t even a photo.
All these photo and ‘graphic slug’ appurtenances are unnecessary to good factual reporting and are a confusing distraction. As a pilot and A&P mechanic, I’m annoyed by poor reporting of aviation incidents but pleased that you keep trying to keep us focused.
Without an image, our site will not post the article in the slider at the top and when we post on Facebook, the algorhythm will show the piece to way less people. We have found that simple graphic slugs help a lot. These graphic slugs are normal on tv news also.
Elements that might make it seem real are the way it looks to me like it looked without my glasses on first thing this morning…
And, the accompanying ‘Coroner’s Van”, “shown” after the report of a death involved…
(Gives you an idea of the state of my uncorrected vision…)
That it wasn’t actually a photo of the Shelter Cove incident it is associated with became much “clearer” after multiple views involving cleaning and putting my glasses on…
The photo
Look closely — there is no photo.
Don’t feel alone. I thought the same thing
I was very sorry to read this morning that one of the occupants of the airplane did not survive. My condolences to their family and friends. Shelter Cove Fire Department did all they could to save the lives of those folks. A bittersweet rescue.
Graphic slug looks like a photo on small phone screen. An unnecessary and misleading news component. You censor spam comments, why should readers have to censor slugs or detect ai images. Common use does not necessarily mean ideal news media practice. Typos are common also but not recommended.
This is not an AI image. It’s a simple automated drawing from a photo.
Please note, so that you won’t be confused in the future, I will never post large text across an image of something that occurred in the article. Should you see large text like that, assume you are not seeing an image of the event but rather a graphic slug.
We use these over and over. Today alone, off the top of my head, we have two different Vegetation Fire Graphic Slugs, one Investigation Graphic slug, and one Preliminary Hearing. When you watch television news you’ll see the same thing– an image of flames with the word WILDFIRE superimposed or a image of a knife with the word STABBING. This is normal news practice. It never occurred to me until the last year when someone was upset about a STRUCTURE FIRE image that I had been using for about 15 years with no complaints. I’m assuming that readers must now be coming to us without some awareness of news practices? But I’m unsure why this has become a concern.
I remember the saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’ but today with AI and earlier with Photoshop, ‘doctored’ pics just cause one to doubt. Just more confusion in today’s world.
I understand your concern. In today’s world, with AI and photo-editing so prevalent, it’s natural to wonder what’s real. That’s why I want to be very clear about what these are.
The images with large text across them are graphic slugs—essentially category markers. They aren’t photos of the actual event. News outlets have used these for decades. On television, you’ll see flames with the word WILDFIRE or a gavel with COURT CASE. Online, we use a similar approach so readers can quickly recognize the type of story.
I’m sorry this traditional news practice is confusing. But I’m honestly unsure why—it has been used for many years without issue, and only recently have some readers questioned it.
There’s also a practical reason. Without an image, our site won’t display the article in the top slider, and on Facebook the algorithm will show it to far fewer people. We’ve tested this, and having simple graphic slugs makes a huge difference in making sure readers even see the story.
They’re a normal, long-standing practice in newsrooms and they help us get important information to the public.
Aanother practical reason is to save Kym & Lisa time spent looking for a suitable public domain image…
Wow, I guess everybody is wound pretty tight these days. So, finally, I guess we get it. A composite, generated, or file photo with a headline through it simply denotes the general topic of the piece, not necessarily a factual representation.
sorry for the death and injury. I hope we will see the final report. Seems like a clear day unless the wind was bumpy.