Abraham Louisiana

“I
“I wouldn’t
want anyone
other than
Rick Sass
nearby if I
were in a
plane crash,” Michigan Wing
Capt. Al Pheley said. Pheley
believes Sass, his friend and
fellow captain in the Kellogg
Field Senior Squadron in
Battle Creek, is a great guy to
have around anytime —
particularly in an
emergency situation
like the one Sass
found himself in this
past October.
Sass, a scuba
diving instructor and
dive shop owner for
more than 30 years,
was leading a dive
tour group in the
waters off Bonaire in
the Caribbean when the unthinkable happened. While
on a break between dives, he and others on the dive
boat saw a small plane crash into the ocean. “It
happened behind us. One guy saw it hit the water the
first time and yelled, so we all turned around,” he said.
“The plane actually skipped off the water and then hit
again, nose down. It was really surreal to see it happen.”
A Civil Air Patrol pilot for 18 years, Sass has worked
his share of search missions, but in most cases a rescue
has never been necessary. “I’ve been chasing down
ELTs and doing mission work for years, and 90 percent
of the time you find them sitting in the hangar,” he
said. “So to see this plane crash right before my eyes
was crazy.”
Both his CAP and diving experiences have ingrained
a constant readiness in Sass, made evident by his swift
reaction to the unfolding crisis. “As soon as it happened,
I got the boat moving toward the crash site,” he said.
A CAP pilot for 18 years, Capt. Rick Sass smiles while at the controls of
his Navion 4045K, above, an L-17 with stars and bars and a U.S. Army
paint job that he and a partner reluctantly sold two years ago. “Flew
great and was built like a tank!” Sass said. “Just couldnʼt fly it and the
CAP bird enough to feel like I was doing either any justice or staying
safe.” He continues to fly regularly with the Michigan Wingʼs Kellogg
Field Senior Squadron in Battle Creek.
“We got over there in about six minutes and saw people
were floating in the water with their life vests on. They
were saying the pilot was still in the plane. Before the
boat was even stopped, I had jumped in the water with
my dive gear to see about getting the pilot.”
Almost instantly, though, Sass recognized that the
plane had already sunk too far to be reached. “It was
already down over 400 feet,” he said. “I couldn’t get to
it. We helped the others out of the water, checked to
make sure they were all OK, which they were, and that
was about all we ended up doing.”
Though he was ready, willing and able to use them,
Sass’ diving skills weren’t needed that day, so he’s
hesitant to call this a rescue. “It was not as much a
rescue — more of a recovery,” he said. “I know how to
do an underwater rescue, but we never went down. It
was obvious it was just too deep.”
Despite his downplaying the event, others — like
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