Carolyn Brantigan isn’t sure how many seconds it took for the helicopter to fall 300 feet to the 48-degree water.

But she does know this: All of that flight training paid off.

Between the time the engine died and the Bell 47 helicopter crashed into Wasp Passage near Bell Island, her husband Dr. John Brantigan — the pilot — had the presence of mind to keep the helo tilted forward so the rotors would spin, slowing the helicopter’s descent.

And when the helicopter hit the water and flipped, smashing the cockpit, the Brantigans managed to undo their seatbelts and swim to the surface, cold but unscathed.

On the Bell Island shore, “there were these great guys running toward the boat that we could see,” Carolyn said. The Brantigans were out of the water in two to three minutes.

Today, the Shaw Island couple say they plan to fly again, having survived the crash of their beloved helo — nicknamed Little Red — June 8.

Dr. John Brantigan told KING 5-TV that it was “a stupid mistake … it wasn’t the helicopter’s fault.”

The Brantigans were out for a pleasure flight at about 2:30 p.m. Dr. Brantigan asked for carburetor heat, but his wife accidentally pulled the lever for fuel mixture control. That caused the engine to shut off and the helicopter headed for the water.

“As the helicopter hit the water it flipped upside down. We were suddenly under water and with our seatbelts upside down,” Dr. Brantigan told the TV station. “We were both able to release our seatbelts and get out with just a couple of bruises.”

Carolyn Brantigan said she wasn’t disoriented, despite the experience of crashing, flipping over and being upside down underwater. “I could see quite clearly,” she said. “I could see the edges of the helicopter. I felt like I went out the door. The framing seemed to be there. It’s hard to tell.”

The Brantigans surfaced and climbed atop the helicopter. Brandon Bolt and Travis Parker, two construction workers with Terra Firma NW, saw the crash, went to the scene by boat, retrieved the couple and took them to Shaw Island’s Neck Point dock, near the Brantigans’ home.

The Sheriff’s Boat Guardian and the U.S. Coast Guard went to the scene. Orcas Island EMS was dispatched and the sheriff’s dive team was put on notice. By 2:56 p.m., Brantigan friend Tifni Twitchell Lynch said the couple were home. “Everybody is OK. They are both in a state of shock, really cold and wet, but they are alive and OK,” Lynch said at the time.

By 2:59 p.m., the U.S. Coast Guard had cancelled its “pan pan,” a notice of a boat in trouble or a person in the water. It’s a notice to all boaters to help if they can.

“Both people are safely recovered,” a Coast Guard radio broadcast reported.

By 3:30 p.m., the couple were in a boat and back on the scene to watch as Towline Marine Assist began towing Little Red to Skyline Marina in Anacortes. From there, Little Red was taken to a hangar at Skagit Airport.

A day after the crash, the Brantigans were not sure whether Little Red would ever fly again. But this they knew: “Heavens, yes,” Carolyn Brantigan responded when asked if she and her husband would fly a helicopter again.

Dr. Brantigan has been flying fixed wing aircraft for 38 years; Carolyn Brantigan has been flying fixed wing for 15 years. Both have been flying helicopters for seven years, and bought Little Red seven years ago. “It was a beautiful helicopter,” she said.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Bill Cumming said the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board were notified.