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Disputed accounts Pilot thinks Kelly's memory of crash may be a little off
Posted: Saturday June 03, 2000 01:12 AM
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) -- The pilot of the plane carrying Jim Kelly has a less harrowing account of the rough landing in the Berring Sea than the one given by the former Buffalo Bills quarterback. Kelly says he is lucky to be alive after the plane went down May 20 about 100 yards off the Alaska Peninsula. "I had to swim to shore, but thank God, I'm still here," he told Buffalo's WGRZ-TV on Wednesday. But the pilot offered a different version, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. "He said he landed in the tidal zone, in six inches of water," said Jim LaBelle, NTSB's chief in Alaska. The pilot, Jerry Jacques, was traveling and could not be reached, his secretary said. LaBelle said it appears what happened does not meet the NTSB's threshold for an investigation because there was no serious injury and the plane, a Super Cub on wheels, sustained little damage. The pilot, Jerry Jacques, told the NTSB the plane lost engine power shortly after departing the beach at Cold Bay, where Kelly and his brother Pat were hunting bears. Kelly was attending the funeral Thursday of a former teammate's father. News of the accident surfaced after the Kellys returned from their two-week vacation. "We lost total power of the plane, and the pilot turned and said, `Jim, brace yourself. We're going down,'" Kelly told the Buffalo station. "I had some choice words and pretty much saw everything flash in front of me." The pilot, he said, tried to skip the plane along the water but it nosed in. "I had to hurry and undo my seat belt and take off my helmet and knock out the windows, which the pilot did," Kelly said. Kelly said he sustained minor facial cuts and had a nail torn off his finger. A Federal Aviation Administration inspector checked the plane Thursday and said it was fine except for propeller damage. "No damage, no injuries," FAA spokeswoman Kirsti Dunn said. "It's sort of a nonreportable incident."
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