CHARLESTOWN, N.H. (AP) – A Saturday morning fishing trip on the Connecticut River turned into a dramatic rescue.

Timothy Jordan of Keene was on the river about 9 a.m. when he watched an ultralight plane climb, turn and then drop. He thought the pilot was horsing around until the plane’s parachute deployed and it nosedived into the water.

“He hit the water pretty hard,” Jordan said.

Jordan and his fishing companion and brother-in-law, Gilbert Evans of Walpole, headed for the scene, arriving soon after another boat that was closer.

Charlestown and Springfield, Vt., police identified the pilot as Jeffrey Nicolay, 54, of Charlestown. They and others said Nicolay was not seriously injured.

Carl Hall of Cornish and and his son, Carl Jr., were in another boat and reached Nicolay first. Jordan said Nicolay had taken off his seatbelt and had tried to swim, but had stopped and was lying face-down in the water. Jordan said the four fishermen used both boats to get him to shore.

“He wasn’t conscious,” Jordan said. “He wasn’t breathing. … He was blue.” The elder Hall gave Nicolay mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and got Nicolay breathing again, Jordan said. The men loaded Nicolay, now conscious and able to talk, into one of the boats and brought him to the Vermont side of the river, where rescuers had easier access.

Jordan helped pull the submerged plane out of the river later. He said some of its fiberglass housing was cracked and broken, but the wings appeared to be all right.

“He’s a lucky guy,” Jordan said. “It’s just unbelievable.”

Jordan said it also was lucky that two boats were nearby when the plane crashed. He said he hadn’t seen any boats on the river all day.

“It’s just by the grace of God that it happened right where we were so someone could go help him,” Jordan said. “He wouldn’t have made it.”

A friend, Rhett Radford, said Nicolay took off from Morningside Flight Park in Claremont.

Police said the Federal Aviation Administration was investigating.