2 die after seaplane hits Tri-Cities power line and crashes into Columbia River

Two men died after a floatplane flew into a power line that crossed the Columbia River to Clover Island in Kennewick on Wednesday afternoon, sending the plane and a live wire into the river.

The crumpled small plane landed upside down in the water near the Pasco shoreline about 2:30 p.m. and its pontoons kept it afloat as it drifted downstream past the cable bridge.

Emergency crews managed to pull it to shore and secure it until it could be pulled out.

The plane was lifted out of the water by a Lampson crane about two hours after the crash. The plane appeared to be mostly intact.

Franklin County Coroner Curtis McGary confirmed the two men onboard did not survive, and their bodies were recovered. Their names were not released Wednesday.

Andrew Waterhouse, 19, a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was crossing the cable bridge when he saw the plane fly west low over the bridge and then start to descend, he told the Tri-City Herald.

“Oh man, what a cool plane,” he thought at the time. “He’s going in for a landing on the Columbia. Must be a fun day.”

But then as the plane got to the high tension power line just west of the bridge, it took a small dip as if it was trying to avoid something, Waterhouse said.

“And then I saw him hit the line and the line snapped and (the plane) just went straight into the water,” Waterhouse said.

The pilot appeared to try to go beneath the power lines but hit the bottom line with one of the plane’s wings.

Someone from the shore jumped in the water and people on a boat and on jet skies also tried unsuccessfully to open the doors of the plane, Waterhouse said.

There appeared to be two people inside, he said.

The flight did not appear to originate from the Richland or Pasco airports.

Clif Dyer, owner of Sundance Aviation at the Richland Airport, and Malin Bergstrom, owner of Bergstrom Aviation at the Tri-Cities Airport, both said they had no information about the plane, described by witnesses as a small seaplane. “Prayers for those onboard,” Bergstrom said.

A check of the tail number showed the plane had more than one owner, with registration linked to a Sonoma, Calif., address.

The National Transportation Safety Board will be investigating the crash.

Benton County Sheriff’s Office asked boaters to stay off the river in the area Wednesday afternoon. Traffic was backed up on the cable bridge an hour after the crash.

Roughly 20 police and fire vehicles were at the scene. Benton County and Franklin County sheriff’s departments and the Pasco fire department launched their boats shortly after the crash to try to help anyone involved. Columbia Basin Dive Rescue crews also responded to help get the plane from the water.

The Benton PUD had a boom truck at the river about 3:30 p.m. to work to restore power that was lost to more than 11,000 customers.

The power outage extended south of the Columbia River from Highway 395 west toward Leslie Road and affected almost 20% of the public utility district’s customers.

Franklin PUD also reported a power outage to about 1,800 customers in Pasco north of the Columbia River to Interstate 182.

Power was restored later in the afternoon but power crews worked into the evening to work on the damaged power line that sank into the river and across the entrance to the Clover Island Marina.

The downed line sparked a brush fire on the Pasco side of the river, which burned out after spreading across about an acre to land that had already burned in a recent fire.

Ellie Conover, Annette Cary, Cameron Probert, Bob Brawdy and Wendy Culverwell of the Tri-City Herald staff contributed to this report.

This is a developing story and will be updated

This story was originally published June 24, 2026 at 3:24 PM with the headline "2 die after seaplane hits Tri-Cities power line and crashes into Columbia River."