After stopping over in San Juan, Puerto Rico for some refueling and a maintenance check on one of my lights we departed for Princess Juliana Intl. at about 9:25EST. ATIS informed me that conditions were favorable into St. Maarten so I decided to bring boss in-- hey, that's what I'm getting Overtime for.
As boss and his family rested in their seats, my first officer and I were getting uneasy. The cloud cover was incredible and it didn't get better even as we descended through 2,000 and eventually 1,500 feet. We trusted our instruments as we've been taught, even as our nerves got even more shaky.
The winds began to pick up and we were experiencing some 20-30mph winds as we descended on to final to Runway 9 and Juliana. It wasn't until about 5 miles out that I picked up faint red lights in the distance-- our destination. My nerves settled, but slightly.
At about 2 miles out, things got bad.
The wind was roaring against our plane, I found myself making quick adjustments all the way down my final. The First Officer lowered the gears. The altitude guage was jumping up and down and the wind pushed us down FAST. I could faintly see a few vacationers sipping drinks on their hotel patios. I was scared.
I knew we were coming in too low and the winds were almost too hard to shake. One more wind shear screwed with my maneuver even more, I could see the rippled in the water. I knew this was going to end on the wrong note.
SPLASH! I heard the engines explose as they crashed into the water. I, on the other hand saw sand outside my window. We had crashed right before the shoreline and my attempt to raise the nose limited the velocity at which we were heading into the water. The aircraft's wings split right before the engine and I heard the screams from the back of the plane. I took any hard object i could find and cracked my window open. I then jumped out and paramedics were already on their way. The First Officer followed after me, and the emergency slides were open into the shallow water. I saw boss and his family slide out some 20 yards away from me.
We were all rushed to the hospital, nearly uninjured excluding boss' wife's broken wrist. The crash is being investigated as I report this, and the reasoning behind why I was given such favorable weather conditions at such a rough time is being looked into.
