Wisconsin Republican gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany said he and a pilot escaped with minor injuries after their small plane lost power and made an emergency landing in a lake Saturday night.

Tiffany said the four-seat Bonanza was approaching Wausau Downtown Airport when it lost power following his appearance at the La Crosse County Lincoln Day Dinner.

“The pilot made an emergency water landing in Lake Wausau,” Tiffany wrote on X.

COAST GUARD PLANE WITH DHS SECRETARY MARKWAYNE MULLIN ON BOARD MAKES EMERGENCY LANDING AFTER ENGINE FAILURE

The congressman explained that he and the pilot quickly called 911 after hitting the water, but the aircraft began filling and sinking into the lake before rescuers could reach them.

“As the plane began to submerge, we exited the aircraft and swam to a shallow area, where we waited until emergency responders reached us by boat,” Tiffany said.

MULTIPLE INJURED AFTER FLOATPLANE MAKES EMERGENCY LANDING, CATCHES FIRE OFF WASHINGTON COAST

Tiffany and the pilot were pulled from the lake and transported to Aspirus Wausau Hospital. Both sustained only minor injuries, according to the congressman.

“I want to express my deepest gratitude to the pilot, the Wausau Fire Department, and all of the first responders who came to our aid so quickly,” Tiffany said. “They got us safely off the water and transported us to Aspirus Wausau Hospital, where we received excellent care.”

Tiffany shared that his wife, Chris, was by his side at the hospital following the harrowing landing and water rescue.

“God was watching over us tonight, and I am incredibly grateful to be here in the hospital with my wife, Chris, by my side,” he said. “An experience like this reminds you just how precious life is.”

Prayers and messages of relief poured in across social media after Tiffany shared details of the close call.

‘COMMON SENSE AGAINST CRAZY’: TRUMP-BACKED CANDIDATE SOUNDS ALARM ON SOCIALIST HONG IN WISCONSIN RACE

“My god! What an ordeal. Very grateful everyone is safe,” one person wrote.

“Very glad you are okay, Congressman Tiffany,” another commented.

“Prayers to you and everyone aboard that flight!” a third person wrote. “So thankful you are all alive and able to see your loved ones.”

Tiffany currently represents Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District and is running as the Republican candidate for governor in the state’s upcoming election.

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The cause of the reported power loss remains under investigation.

For the first time, the Justice Department brought a case before a decades-old but until now unused special court to deport a legal US resident to Afghanistan after she conceded to being an “alien terrorist,” court records show.

Prosecutors alleged Nazira Haji Zada, 47, originally from Afghanistan, supported a plan by her son and son-in-law to commit an Islamic State-inspired mass shooting on Election Day in 2024, according to court documents. Both men have already been charged and will be deported following their release from prison. Haji Zada’s son, Abdullah Haji Zada, 19, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Haji Zada was arrested in July at her home in Fort Worth, Texas, and had an initial hearing in late July. Instead of charging Haji Zada in the criminal justice system, leaders at the Justice Department launched the first-ever civil proceedings at the Alien Terrorist Removal Court. The secretive court allows for a lower standard of proof to remove a person from American soil.

Congress created the court in 1996 to make it easier for the DOJ to use classified evidence, that they say poses a risk to national security, to deport people.

In unsealed court filings dated Aug. 20, Haji Zada waived her rights to challenge the detention and agreed to the deportation. Senior U.S. District Judge Joan Ericksen ordered her removal the same day. Haji Zada’s admission will not be used in criminal proceedings, and the documents were released to the public on Friday.

Haji Zada’s court appointed attorneys, Matthew Farley and Mary Manning Petras, contested the constitutionality of the case in court filings, adding that they weren’t permitted to review evidence. The evidence supporting the removal remains classified, the government said in court documents, because it poses a risk to national security.

Haji Zada’s attorneys said in a statement that their client’s choice to consent to the removal “should not be seen as an endorsement of this court’s legitimacy.”

“Dragging lawful permanent residents into court but refusing to show them or their attorneys the evidence that will be used against them is a plain violation of due process,” the statement said. “We are confident that the Alien Terrorist Removal Court will be struck down as unconstitutional as soon as a judge is asked to address the issue.”

Haji Zada came to the U.S. as a lawful permanent resident in 2018. Her husband was employed at the Bagram Air Base, the last major U.S. base in Afghanistan until it was turned over to Afghan forces in 2021, from 2009 to 2016.

On the night Republicans gathered to mourn the killing of Charlie Kirk and warn against the dangers of violent rhetoric, a crowd at the party’s irregular midterm convention in Dallas repeatedly called for a sitting Senate candidate to be shot, while the Republican senator at the podium never denounced or even noted the outbursts.

The outbursts came repeatedly during Ted Cruz’s Thursday night address at the American Airlines center, when he named a Democrat he accused of holding radical views. After the senator mentioned the New York City mayor, Zohran Mamdani, video footage depicts at least one audience member shouting: “He should be shot!” The same cry followed when Cruz named Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, and again after he named Texas Senate candidate James Talarico. Cruz did not pause or respond to the shouting, and it remains unclear whether he heard it from the stage. Cruz did not respond to a request for comment.

Cruz had accused Mamdani of wanting to seize the means of production, said El-Sayed felt an “obligation” to follow Sharia law and claimed Talarico wanted to dismantle capitalism. Each characterization stretched past remarks the three men had actually made in other contexts.

Asked about the moment on CNN’s The Source With Kaitlan Collins, El-Sayed said such rhetoric had become dangerously normalized and that it should unsettle anyone who heard it. He called on Republicans to name the chant for what it was: incitement that both parties ought to reject, and appealed for a return to a politics centered on people’s basic needs and dignity.

“Look, I’m a dad with two daughters, and I hope those daughters get to grow up and live with their dad. This is what has become the norm in our politics … literally calls to violence and the inability for anybody to actually call it out,” El-Sayed said.

“We can learn to disagree agreeably, and when you hear that kind of call to violence, it should be shuddering to all of us,” he added.

A spokesperson for Mike Rogers, the Republican former congressman challenging El-Sayed for Michigan’s open Senate seat who was in Dallas for the convention, said Rogers condemned the remarks and “all political violence”.

The convention fell on the first anniversary of the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, an occasion Republican speakers repeatedly invoked, including the vice-president, JD Vance, who spoke of his friendship with Kirk during a headlining address.

El-Sayed is locked in one of the cycle’s most closely watched Senate races. A CNN poll released on Wednesday showed him leading Rogers 47% to 44% in the contest to succeed the retiring Democratic senator Gary Peters, as both parties fight for control of the chamber.