A plane crashed when its passengers warned a surfer about a huge shark - and dolphins saved his life

The surfer was grateful to the dolphins for pushing him to shore before the shark got to him, but an expert claimed they may not have acted out of goodwill, but simply kept him away from the schools of fish they ate and didn't want to share with him

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05/10/2022

Wednesday, 05 October 2022, 19:00

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Australian surfer Mick Fanning was attacked by a shark during a competition in South Africa, July 2015 (Reuters)

A light plane crashed into the sea while its two passengers tried to warn a surfer that he was in danger of being attacked by a 6-meter-long shark.

At the time, Australian surfer Bill Ballard claimed he was saved from the shark by dolphins who "pushed" him back to shore at Walgot Beach in New South Wales.

The dolphins were feeding on salmon in the area when Ballard suddenly noticed that their behavior was different from usual.

"It's hard to describe, but they kept coming up to the water to look at me and also started swimming back and forth, getting closer and trying to push me towards the shore," Ballard told Australian newspaper The Courier.

After that, the passengers on the plane that Tus lowered screamed at him: "Shark, shark!"

while pointing to a large shadow of something swimming close to him.

This drama escalated when the plane then crashed a few meters from the beach.

Ballard rushed to check on the condition of the two passengers and recalled his conversation with one of them: "She kept saying, 'That shark was so close to you, so close, and it was the biggest shark I've ever seen. It must have been around 6 meters.'

None of the passengers were injured in the crash, and the species of shark remains unknown, although several species live in this area of ​​Australia, including the big three - whitetip, tiger and bull sharks.

"Grateful to the dolphins. They were like guardian angels who came to save me."

Bill Ballard (photo: screenshot, Facebook)

"I am so grateful to the dolphins. They were like guardian angels who came to save me. At first I thought the passengers must have been mistaken and saw a dolphin, and I kept asking if they were safe, but the pilot said: 'No, I've been flying for years and I know exactly what a shark looks like.' ".

Australia is one of the most likely places in the world for shark attacks to occur.

In 2021, 12 unprovoked human shark attacks were reported.

For the most part, sharks do not seek to hunt humans, but dangerous encounters can occur, when a shark may approach a surfer after mistaking it for something Yehua may have wanted to eat or out of curiosity.

Leonardo Guida, a shark research scientist at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, told Newsweek: "Dolphins and sharks swimming in the same area is not a rare sight at all, as they tend to pursue the same food or hunt in similar areas."

He was also quick to cool down the enthusiasm for the dolphins' good deed, saying: "I'm not a dolphin expert and I don't know what a dolphin thinks, but maybe the dolphins saw the surfer as a possible competitor for food, and 'pushing' him to the shore could have been their way of scaring him and keeping him away of their food - and their intention was not to protect it from the shark."

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