Cargo Plane Makes Emergency Landing in Ocean

A cargo plane was forced to make an emergency landing in the ocean off Hawaii under cover of darkness Friday. The only two occupants of the Boeing 737 were rescued, per CNN, though ABC News' Alex Stone tweeted that one of the pilots was critically injured. The plane had taken off from Honolulu's Daniel K. Inouye International Airport at 1:33am, bound for Kahului, before reporting engine trouble, per Reuters. The pilots were "attempting to return to Honolulu when they were forced to land the aircraft in the water," the FAA said in a statement. They splashed down just 36 minutes after takeoff.

The pilots signaled that they would try to land at nearby Kalaeloa Airport before landing in the ocean about two nautical miles south of their destination. "Paramedics treated a 50-year old patient for a head injury and transported him to a trauma emergency room in serious condition with the injury and multiple lacerations," a Honolulu Emergency Services Department rep tells the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, adding one person was airlifted "directly to an emergency room." The cargo plane, built in 1975, belonged to air cargo and charter services company Transair, whose five Boeing 737 planes make daily flights throughout the Hawaiian island chain. (More emergency landing stories.)