Small plane crashes into Pacific during California lifeguard competition

The banner plane came down 30 yards from the sand at Huntington Beach

A small plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean off of California’s Huntington Beach as a lifeguarding competition was taking place.

The Cessna was reportedly towing a banner as it came down into the ocean. Teenage lifeguards gathered en masse for the 2022 California Surf Lifesaving Association Junior Lifeguard Championship grabbed surfboards and dashed into the waves to help, according to the Associated Press.

Corinne Baginski, whose 17-year-old daughter was on the beach between events, told the news organization that they “heard a thump” before realising what happened.

“The kids saw it and suddenly they turned and ran towards it,” she recalled.

Coast Guard Lt. SondraKay Kneen told the AP that the plane, which only had the pilot onboard, crashed around 30 yards from the shore.

The lifeguards and other first responders tended to the pilot, whose condition is not yet known, according to NBC Los Angeles.