I was on a Cirrus Jet and was doing a tour around Ontario, Canada. My friends came with me and we boarded the plane. We lifted off of the runway around 6:10 AM (We were doing an early trip so we wouldn’t have to wait.) We felt the gear come up but we heard the pilot said “Goddammit” under his breath. We were pretty confused as what was happening so we asked him. He turned his head a bit and said “The nose gear won’t come up. We have to return to the airport.” My friend, Amanda, began to cry but the rest of us tried to calm her down. As slowly as the plane turned, we began to see the airport but we were too high and turned too slowly, so we had to go parallel with runway 21.
We kept descending past the airport when the plane dangerously angled up and began banking to the left. Other than the screams we heard the plane warn us “STALL! STALL!” along with a terrible buzzing sound. We felt the plane nose back down as the pilot was pulling a black circle. Beside the semicircle was 2 words, one on the top and one on the bottom. The top read “TRIM DOWN” and the bottom read “TRIM UP”. THe pilot was trimming towards the “TRIM DOWN” as the plane recovered. We soon realized as well as the pilot that returning to the airport was too dangerous and we could invert and crash. The pilot turned the plane toward Lake Ontario and we began to descend toward it. The girls were weeping while the boys were trying to calm the girls down. The pilot turned his head and yelled “WHEN I TELL YOU TO BRACE, YOU DO IT!” Some of us, including me, didn’t know how to brace.
When we got about 100 feet above the water, the pilot screamed “BRACE!” and I tried to mimic those that knew how to brace. We felt the wing suddenly drop as the pilot screamed “SHIT!”
The wing hit and we were thrown ontop of eachother as the plane quickly spun. the Cirrus rolled over onto its back and the cockpit shattered, sending water into the cabin. I got out of my position and quickly got my buckle unbuckled. I tried to save my friends but I couldn’t find them due to the visibility of the murky water. I tried feeling for them but all I felt was water. I soon surfaced and I found myself 16 feet away from the plane. I figured out that when the cockpit glass shattered, I was sucked out of the plane as well as my seat into a current. When the coast guard boat arrived. I waved my arms to it while swimming to the boat. I boarded it and waited for my friends to surface. They never did. I later found out all of my friends had died when the aircraft broke apart, and I was the only survivor. I later ordered a Cirrus Jet model, since most survivors of plane crashes have those. At the time of writing this, the accident was 16 years ago but I feel like it was yesterday. I remember it like it was. I am never flying Cirrus again.