Sea plane almost lands on whale in Alaska

ANGOON, Alaska, July 16 (UPI) -- Sea planes skidding across the water are a near everyday occurrence in the remote coastal village of Angoon, Alaska. The only other way to get there is by boat.

It's not often, however, that a landing sea plane narrowly avoids a surfacing humpback whale, but that's what happened last week, and it was all caught on camera.

"All the sudden, the pilot advanced the throttle and I didn't know why. I thought, 'Oh something must be wrong,'" Thomas Hamm, who happened to be filming the landing, told CNN.

As seen in the video, that last-second throttle was just enough to bounce the plane up and over the emerging whale, but not before the whale's spout blasted a mist of seawater onto the plane's passing windshield.

The pilot said he didn't see the whale but was reacting to the commotion on the shore. Several people, Mann said, were pointing and yelling trying to alert the pilot to the whale's presence.

Seconds after the near miss the plane landed safely and the whale coasted along unscathed -- a happy ending to a whale of a tale.