Charles Laylin Herndon

PO Box 789

Kelleys Island, Ohio 43438

The events of September 3rd and 4th from my perspective

On the night of September third, Labor Day, my wife and I had dinner with my mother at her house on the East Shore of Kelleys Island, the largest American Island in Lake Erie, located about four miles north of Marblehead. We had left the table to go home. I was at the patio door facing the Lake. The time was 9:10, according to my watch. I saw the wing light of an aircraft, which was obviously headed for trouble, moving in a steady arc towards the water. The light was red, indicating that the left wing was visible to us, so the plane was upside down. The pilot had probably lost his horizon on taking off into the darkness of night sky over a dark lake. I called out to my wife and mother, opened the door and heard the plane hit the water, plop-splash, no explosion. I immediately shouted to my wife to call 911. I then ran towards my row boat a hundred yards away over the protestations of my wife, who wanted me to go into the house and find a lifejacket before setting out. I decided that the lifejacket would take too long to find and continued. The boat was upside down at the top of the bank. I flipped it over, threw in the oars, pulled it down to the water, walked it in, jumped in it and started rowing towards the spot I had thought the plane entered the water.

There was no light on the lake, no other boats, just an inky blackness against the faint glow of Cleveland (about sixty miles away) reflected in the haze of the atmosphere above it. I rowed as hard as I could, trying not to break the oars, which were fairly old. My shoulder needs to be replaced, so there was some pain involved. I figured the mission to be more important than the pain and continued out, trying to pick out silhouettes against the horizon, with no success. I kept calling out, hoping for a response. About a half mile out I heard a distant cry, the sound of someone in trouble. I could not make out then whether there was more than one voice or only one.

I rowed towards the voice bellowing, “I’m coming, I’m coming,” hoping to give courage and focus to whoever was out there. “Shout out,” I yelled. Every twenty seconds or so I heard another cry for help and kept repeating my own chorus. Often there were periods when the cries did not come. I was panicked that the survivor(s) had gone down. After a time I determined that there was only one voice, and then that it was of a young boy. I was getting very tired but kept up the pace, as I drew closer. I could see nothing until Joel Hutchison grabbed onto the rail of my boat just under the port oar. I pulled the oar from its lock and grabbed his arms. He experienced pain with that, so I talked him into getting a leg up on the rail and was then able to roll him into the boat. He did not appear badly hurt. It was amazing to me that he could have stayed up as long as he did and managed to continue to call for help, and then that he could help me, as I got him into the boat.

I looked around as best I could, saw no one, nor any debris. The area was ghostly quiet. Joel told me, “My father was killed in an airplane crash. My brother was killed in an airplane crash. They were bloody and the plane went down.” This was said as if he were reporting on it as if it had happened long ago. I turned to see the shore and emergency response teams had pulled their vehicles to the top of the beach and had directed their lights out over the water. I headed back in; keeping the shivering child against my back to absorb what heat he could from me. We talked all the way in. Near the shore I called out to determine the location of the ambulance, then headed towards it.

Joel was taken to it. Boats began to round the point and a helicopter swept its light over the water. This was about thirty minutes from the time the plane went down, although it could have been longer. They searched all night.

I went into the ambulance a couple of times to give Joel a newly familiar face and hand. The second time, after an IV had been inserted, (to which Joel responded with cries unlike those I had heard on the water) a neck brace was fitted to him and a thermal blanket was draped over him, I held his hand and we talked for a while. I asked him how he got out of his seat and shoulder harness. I noticed welts and abrasions from the shoulder harness on his skin. He said it had broken. Then I asked how he had gotten out of the plane. He said it had disintegrated. We talked about the family picnic his family had been on earlier in the day at Indian Lake. He told me of his other siblings and a sister who would have been twelve but who died before he was born. He was then transported to the airport to be taken to Toledo on a Lifeflight Helicopter.

My wife and I slept little. She and a neighbor had both rowed out, trying to get a lifejacket to me and to help as they could. All night the helicopters flew overhead and boats worked the water in their search.

At seven thirty in the morning I got a call from the Coast Guard. They thought I might be able to help in the search. A boat was sent to pick me up at the Seaway Marina. I was taken to the Bristol Bay, the command ship, where I located the general area of the crash on the area-mapping screen. I was then transferred to a boat run by the Ohio Division of Watercraft, which was equipped with drop down sonar. By triangulating off of points I had fixed in my mind at the time of the rescue of young Joel, I positioned the boat within twenty feet of the plane, which was then picked up by sonar. I was returned to Seaway Marina on the boat, which had brought me out to the Bristol Bay.

The following Monday Jeff Hutchison, the pilot, and his nine year old son, Jeremy, were buried in Lima, Ohio. I attended the funeral, accompanied by the mayor of the island and his wife in one police vehicle and by the police chief and an officer in another. There I had a chance to give young Joel a long hug. I met Joyce, the widow of Jeff and mother of Jeremy. We too embraced in what was to me then, as it is in my mind still, an extremely emotional mix of greeting, grief, comfort, appreciation, acknowledgement, promise and relief. I was able to talk with her for about an hour after the services, which, I think, did us, both, some good.