Pilot Neil Morrison smelled smoke.

Flying above the Strait of Juan de Fuca in the Aero Museum’s 1941 Stearman A75N on April 28, his view of the sun sparkling off the water was suddenly obscured by splatters of oil on the windshield.

Morrison, piloting in the back seat of the legendary WWII trainer, knew from his years of experience as a commercial jet pilot he needed to return to terra firma: immediately.

Landing in the water was not an option: the single-engine bi-plane’s wood, steel and Dacron fuselage would not have survived the impact. Plus, the possibility of drowning himself or his passenger, Aero Museum volunteer coordinator Eric Taylor, was too great.

On the ground, Reed Gunstone saw it all from the beach in Discovery Bay where he raises clams. “The engine blew up first,” he said. “Then the pilot tried to glide down to the beach.”

Aiming for the flattest surface he could find, Morrison made an emergency landing on the spit at the 3500 block of Old Gardiner Road, near Johnson & Gunstone Shellfish company.

When they touched down on the beach, it is likely the lower wing dragged in the water, which put the plane up on its nose, said Mike Payne, Director of the Aero Museum.

“Hitting the water is like hitting a brick wall,” he said. “He had the right airspeed coming in, so luckily it went up but then went back on its wheels.”

Morrison was able to get out of the plane, but Taylor was trapped and had to be extracted. Gunstone provided Sawzalls to help cut part of the fuselage so that aid crews could extract Taylor, said deputy Mark Apeland, who was one of the first to respond to the scene.

Both men suffered injuries and were airlifted to Harborview Medical Center, Apeland said. Payne said they have since been released from the hospital with minor injuries. Morrison suffered a crack to the sternum, while Taylor had external scratches and a broken finger.

It was the third local aircraft crash in the past six months, but probably one of a thousand amazing flights by a Stearman, the little Boeing plane that came home from WWII to become the craft of choice for crop-dusters and dare-devils.

In December, an 87-year-old man suffered injuries after he crashed a Beech B-35 in Port Hadlock-Irondale, and another man had died in a plane crash on Whidbey Island just the day before.

According to Payne, Morrison and Taylor are experienced, licensed pilots. Morrison teaches new pilots and Taylor both volunteers and herds the Museum’s volunteers.

Gunstone said it was apparent the pilot knew what to do in an emergency landing.

“Talk about lucky,” said Gunstone. “I mean it was unlucky that it happened, but it could’ve been a lot worse.”

The Stearman Model 75 was a Boeing model used as a military trainer aircraft during the 1940s. Flight enthusiasts say it was designed to be a little difficult to fly, so as to quickly sort promising pilots from those not suited, and to prepare trainees for flying bigger, harder-to-control combat and cargo aircraft.

After the war was over, thousands of surplus Stearmans were sold on the civilian market. They were used as crop dusters, sports planes, and in airshows, often with souped-up engines.

The Aero Museum currently has more than twenty restored aircraft on display in its main hangar. The Stearman was donated two years ago by an individual who did the restoration.

“We flew it last weekend and it went up for two flights and ran perfectly,” Payne said.

But he said the engines are 70 or more years old.

After the two pilots were airlifted to Harborview, the Aero Museum and the Gunstones worked to get the airplane off of the beach before the tide came in.

“We were just trying to do the right thing to help out,” Gunstone said. “No need having more contaminants in the water than are already there.”

Now, the wreckage of the plane is back at the Aero Museum, where Payne said it could be a future project for students studying restoration.

“The loss of an airplane is insignificant compared to the loss of an individual,” he said. “We’re so thankful that Morrison was able to land it the way he did. When the time comes, we can rebuild it.”