Australian pilot Lyn Gray and her co-pilot, Kristian Kauter, had plenty of advisers around when they realized they would have to ditch the little two-engine Piper Seminole in the middle of the Pacific.

"There must have been 10 or 12 airplanes nearby," said Gray, who has flown from the Mainland to Australia 17 times. "They were helping us."

One of the planes helping on Thursday was a Navy P-3C, she said. There were a number of civilian airliners overhead, and a Coast Guard C-130 arrived to help.

One of the nearby pilot-advisers, Ray Clamback, had been flying wingman to the Seminole in another small plane. The information he gave to Gray and Kauter he got firsthand: He's ditched two airplanes off Hawai'i.

Clamback runs a business that ferries airplanes from the U.S. to Australia, with a stopoff in Hawai'i. He ditched in 1999 and in 2004, but was rescued by the Coast Guard out of Hawai'i both times after bobbing in a life jacket for several hours over the wreckage of the sunken planes.

Gray and Kauter work for him.

On Thursday, Gray and Kauter were about 1,000 miles off the coast of California when Gray noticed that the Piper's fuel level had dropped significantly, and Clamback could see fuel leaking from one of its engines.

"I told them," Clamback said, " 'You're going to have to shut that engine down.' "

Gray did, but it was too little, too late. The Piper had been modified to carry additional fuel for the trans-Pacific flight, but the leak had more than canceled it out.

"We were in a sort of no man's land," said Kauter, who was on his second ferry mission from the Mainland to Australia. "We didn't have enough fuel to turn back, and we didn't have enough to go on."

The pilots took turns flying the plane on a single engine while the Coast Guard searched for the best area for them to ditch.

Kauter said their main fear was being knocked unconscious when they would hit the water, so they carefully stowed everything behind them as securely and as far away from them as possible.

Soon the Coast Guard gave word that they'd found a spot to ditch and a sea captain ready to help: The Maltese container ship Virginius, en route to China, could pick them up about 535 miles northeast of Hilo.

The Coast Guard C-130 flew ahead, dropping flares into the ocean to make a runway for Gray.

Gray said they made sure they had their life jackets on and their rafts in the seats with them. They opened the Piper's door on her side and an emergency exit on Kauter's side, then she turned the leaking engine back on.

Then she brought the plane down, as slowly as possible but a little faster than felt comfortable.

Coast Guard officials said the plane looked like it was making a perfect landing on water. When it hit, the pilot and co-pilot were out of the plane in seconds.

In less than four minutes, the Piper had sunk. Within about 15 minutes, Gray and Kauter were safely aboard the Virginius, and Clamback was flying ahead to Hawai'i to await them.

Although Good Samaritans at sea are not required to deliver rescued people to their intended destination, the captain of the Virginius agreed to bring the pilot and co-pilot to a spot about 12 miles off Honolulu and turn them over to the Coast Guard cutter Washington, which brought them into Coast Guard Station Honolulu at Sand Island yesterday.

After an interview with a customs agent, Gray and Kauter stepped ashore.

"It's nice to be back on solid land," Kauter said.

Reach Karen Blakeman at kblakeman@honoluluadvertiser.com.