'She just conked out:' Pilot recalls splash landing

It was a good day to fly over Lake Michigan. Cold but clear and not much wind.

Joseph Lokites was feeling confident about earning his wings. The U.S. Navy pilot had completed seven takeoffs and landings during training and needed just one more to certify. Now, he was about to land.

It was Nov. 24, 1944. The 21-year-old kid from Des Moines, IA., was approaching the flight deck of the USS Wolverine when something went wrong.

"She just conked out," Lokites said. "I'm not sure what happened, but the engine just quit."

The propeller on his Douglas SBD Dauntless stopped spinning long before he could make the landing.

"I didn't have time to be scared," said Lokites. He remembers the next few minutes with pinpoint accuracy.

"It happened fast. My wing hit the water first. That was a good thing because if I landed upside down, I would have been in real trouble."

Lokites, "hopped out of there" quickly and floated in his life preserver, watching his plane sink.

Other pilots who crashed into the icy waters survived the accidents only to quickly die of hypothermia. But Lokites was grateful to be rescued within minutes.

"I wasn't in there too long," he said.

Undaunted by the life-threating mishap, Lokites was back in the cockpit two days later and made his qualifying landing without incident.

Now 86 years old and still in Des Moines, Lokites said had no idea his plane was being pulled from Lake Michigan nearly 65 years after he crashed until he was called by reporters on Friday.

He served in the Navy for four years but wasn't sent on combat missions like many of his friends.

"The farthest I went was Cuba," he said. After the war, he went to Drake University and taught physical education in Des Moines.

Lokites said the crash wasn't a life-changing event for him, and admits some of the details are a little fuzzy.

"That was a long time ago," he said. "I do remember it was my sister's birthday."