A Cessna Down: The Lake Powell Plane Crash That Put Two People at the Bottom

On a Saturday afternoon in August 2022, a single-engine Cessna 207 was flying near Face Canyon on Lake Powell when the pilot reported engine trouble. Within moments, the aircraft hit the water. The plane carried six French tourists and a pilot. In the chaos of a crash landing on open water, rescuers and bystanders managed to pull four passengers from the lake and get them into nearby boats. Two people, still inside the aircraft, did not make it out.

The Cessna settled in roughly 120 feet of water. Kane County authorities confirmed the two fatalities. Three passengers were airlifted with serious injuries to St. George Regional Hospital. Two others were transported by boat to Antelope Marina with minor injuries. The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board launched investigations into the cause of the crash.

What unfolds after an aircraft goes down in a remote lake is a layered, difficult process. The human toll demands immediate attention — and in this case, bystanders and the pilot acted quickly and courageously to get as many people out of the water as possible before the plane sank. But the aircraft itself raises its own set of questions. A Cessna 207 carries aviation fuel, oil, hydraulic fluid, and an array of components that do not belong in a lake ecosystem. At 120 feet of depth, recovery is achievable but requires a coordinated operation involving commercial diving assets, surface vessels, and coordination with federal authorities who manage Lake Powell as part of Glen Canyon National Recreation Area.

Aircraft recoveries are among the most technically demanding operations in underwater debris removal. Investigators often need access to the aircraft — particularly the engine, flight control systems, and flight data — to determine cause of accident. That means recovery is typically handled by NTSB or FAA-contracted salvage operators in the immediate post-crash period. But what happens to the site afterward? Environmental cleanup, residual fuel remediation, and removal of any remaining wreckage that was not part of the accident investigation are questions that do not always have clear answers or clear funding.

Lake Powell has seen multiple aircraft incidents over its history. It has also seen vessels sink, vehicles plunge from ledges, houseboats go down in storms, and marina fires send hardware to the bottom. Each incident adds to a lakebed inventory that grows faster than anyone addresses it. The lake is 186 miles long, with more than 2,000 miles of shoreline and canyon arms that run into remote country few people ever visit. Much of what is down there is simply unknown.

We are Fathom Restoration, and we believe the unknown is not an excuse for inaction — it is a reason to invest in better tools, better surveys, and a dedicated team capable of finding and removing what our lakes are hiding. Waterway cleanup in Utah is not a luxury. It is an environmental responsibility, and it is one that our generation has inherited from six decades of recreational use with minimal accountability for what stays on the bottom.

The people aboard that Cessna came to Lake Powell as tourists, looking for the beauty and vastness of the American West. They found it. Some of them didn’t come home. We cannot undo those tragedies. But we can commit to keeping Utah’s waters clean, safe, and as free as possible from the pollution those tragedies leave behind.

Learn more or support our work at fathomrestoration.org.

Fathom Restoration is a disabled-veteran-led Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to lake cleanup and the recovery of submerged vehicles, vessels, and debris from Utah’s lakes and waterways. Donate, volunteer, or report a submerged vehicle at fathomrestoration.org.

Source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/plane-crash-lake-powell-french-tourists-2-killed-5-injured/