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Wrestling scion Shane McMahon and his helicopter pilot emerged intact Wednesday from an emergency landing in the Atlantic Ocean, with Long Island lifeguards coming to the rescue a la Hulk Hogan.
“I’d like to thank the man upstairs for looking out this morning and thanks to pilot Mario (Regtien),” McMahon tweeted about the scary landing shortly after they left Westchester County Airport.
McMahon, the son of wrestling impresario Vince McMahon and federal Small Business Administration chief Linda McMahon, said he heard a loud bang before the chopper started to fall from the sky.
“It’s very unsettling,” said the WWE executive after returning to the shore near Gilgo Beach. “It’s very unnerving. But Mario was super calm, which made me super calm, and we landed perfectly.”
Lifeguard Don Dobby, 31, watched as the Robinson R44 helicopter went down around 10:30 a.m.
“It caught our eye because it was unusually low,” said Dobby. “It kept going down and then it just seemed to drop. It made a big splash.”
Retgien said the unplanned water landing about a mile offshore went as well as possible. He radioed in a mayday before heading down.
“It went as good as it could go,” he recalled. “Landed softly, and I checked to see if (Shane) was OK. I left my shoes in the helicopter in case we had to swim.”
Shane McMahon, 47, has served as an announcer, a businessman and a wrestler during a long involvement with the WWE.
Dobby and fellow lifeguard Zak Viverito paddled out in kayaks to the downed craft. When they reached McMahon and Regtien, the quartet shared perplexed looks.
“They probably had the same expression that we had: Is this really happening?” said Dobby. “They didn’t panic or anything. It was non-eventful except for the initial crash.”
McMahon insisted on doing the paddling as he returned to the beach with Viverito.
No immediate cause was given for the chopper’s sudden fall from the sky on a sunny July morning. But pilot Regtien received kudos all around for his handling of the crisis.
“The pilot did a really phenomenal job of getting that helicopter in the water safely,” said Detective . Michael Sileo of the NYPD Aviation Unit.
The fortunate tag team departed from the airport in Harrison, stopped at a Manhattan heliport and were headed east along the Long Island coast when near-disaster struck.
“We heard some noise, and it became very clear to me that I could no longer continue flying the helicopter,” Retgien said.
The Coast Guard responded to remove the stranded helicopter as it bobbed in the ocean on its pontoons. A rescue helicopter and two small boats circled the downed red chopper.
“Only Shane McMahon can take a bump from a helicopter and somehow be unharmed,” tweeted Nick Jackson, one-half of the wrestling tag team The Young Bucks.