Ferdinand Puentes was flying off the coast of Hawaii early last month when, amid a barrage of beeping, sirens and a loud bang, he and his fellow passengers realized their Makani Kai Air plane was going down.
Puentes captured the surreal scene aboard the aircraft with his GoPro camera as the Cessna splashed down, sending water trickling down the windows.
After a remarkably calm exit, in which passengers donned life-jackets and disembarked from the plane, he snapped an epic selfie with the tail of the sinking aircraft visible in the top right corner of the frame. (View the remarkable snapshot at 1:27 in the KHON video above.)
"I was shocked. It was a lot of thoughts that go through," said Rosa Key, one of the passengers, to KITV in an interview last month about the crash. "It was like a slow motion of everything. The plane slowly going down."
A copy of the official report, obtained by KVOA, states the plane sank after 25 minutes. U.S. Coast Guard and Maui Fire and Rescue responders arrived on scene about 80 minutes after the crash.
The crash resulted in the death of one passenger, Loretta Fuddy, who was returning from a business trip as Hawaii's state health director. The eight other passengers aboard the flight, including the pilot, survived.
Watch Puentes' video of the crash, below: