A small plane carrying Wisconsin Congressman Tom Tiffany made an emergency landing on Lake Wausau on Saturday night, forcing him and the pilot to swim to safety, the Marathon County Sheriff’s Office said.
Tiffany, the state’s Republican nominee for governor, was returning from the La Crosse County Lincoln Day Dinner when the aircraft lost power as it approached Wausau Downtown Airport. The pilot put the plane down in the lake after it encountered a mechanical issue.
Authorities received a 911 report of a plane crash on the water at 20:49 local time. The pair got out of the submerging aircraft and reached shallow water, where a Wausau Fire Department airboat rescued them about 15 minutes later, at 21:05, the sheriff’s office said.
“As the plane began to submerge, we exited the aircraft and swam to a shallow area, where we waited until emergency responders reached us by boat,” Tiffany wrote on social media.
Both men sustained minor injuries and were taken to a nearby hospital. Tiffany received a small cut over his right eye, his campaign said. “God was watching over us tonight, and I am incredibly grateful to be here in the hospital with my wife, Chris, by my side,” he said.
The two were the only people on board the Beechcraft K35, a single-engine plane that can carry up to five people. Tiffany is running for governor on the Republican ticket.
The cause of the mechanical issue was not immediately clear. The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the incident. The plane remained in the lake as emergency crews worked to remove it.