Minnesota pilot escapes injury after plane lands in lake
A pilot escaped injury Friday night after making an emergency landing on a central Minnesota lake.
The Douglas County Sheriff's Office reported that it received a call just after 7 p.m. that an aircraft had crashed into Lake Winona in Alexandria. The first emergency responders on the scene found the pilot, 18-year-old Maxwell Guderian of Minnetonka, Minn., out of the plane and standing on the roof of the single-engine Piper Archer aircraft.
"Guderian was conducting touch-and-gos at the Alexandria Airport when the (plane) he was flying lost power," the sheriff's office reported in a news release. "Guderian was unable to make it back to the airport and conducted an emergency landing into Lake Winona."
The lake is adjacent to the airport.
The Alexandria Echo Press reported that a volunteer firefighter used a paddle boat to reach Guderian and bring him back to shore. The sheriff's office said he was not injured.
The Federal Aviation Administration will handle the investigation into the incident.
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