3 injured and 3 missing after a seaplane crashes off an Australian tourist island

MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Three people were seriously injured and another three were missing after a seaplane crashed off an Australian tourist island, officials said Wednesday.

Only one of the seven people aboard the Cessna 208 Caravan was rescued without injury after the crash during takeoff from Rottnest Island on Tuesday afternoon, police said.

The plane owned by Swan River Seaplanes was returning to its base in Perth, the Western Australia state capital 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Rottnest Island, which is also known by its Indigenous name Wadjemup.

Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the aviation crash investigator, said specialist investigators were being sent to the scene.

“As reported to the ATSB, during take-off the floatplane collided with the water, before coming to rest partially submerged,” the bureau’s chief commissioner Angus Mitchell said in a statement on Wednesday.

Greg Quin, a tourist who was vacationing on Rottnest, said he saw the plane crash.

“We were watching the seaplane take off and just as it was beginning to get off the water, it just tipped over and it crashed,” Quin told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio in Perth.

“A lot of people in the water on their boats rushed to the scene and I think got there really, really quickly,” he added.

The three injured people were flown to a Perth hospital in serious but stable conditions, officials said.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese described the crash as “terrible news.”

“The pictures would have been seen by all Australians as they woke up this morning,” Albanese told ABC television. “My heart goes out to all those involved.”