THE Cannonvale man who was forced to ditch his burning motorglider in Peter Faust Dam on Sunday morning has escaped the incident unscathed.

The morning began as usual for local pilot Paul Harrington, who intended on flying to Burketown to meet up with a group friends to surf the Morning Glory, a gigantic 'roll' cloud that allows gliders to reach speeds upwards of 150kmh.

However, Mr Harrington's AMT-200 motorglider had other ideas.

As Mr Harrington was flying over Peter Faust Dam, smoke began to fill the cockpit.

"I couldn't breathe," he said." I was at 4000 feet. I opened one of the side windows and put my hand out to try and get air in but it wasn't enough."

Mr Harrington decided to jettison his canopy, which only partly worked but at least allowed him to breathe.

The front right side of the plane then caught fire, rushing over the top of the stainless steel firewall.

Mr Harrington said he had the airbrakes on fully so as to get down as quickly as possible.

"It's a hard choice. You can either stay with the plane and burn to death, which is pretty awful, or jump out and be killed instantly. I wasn't wearing a parachute," he said.

Mr Harrington said he decided to stay with the plane and so aimed to land just in front of a speedboat on Peter Faust Dam, in case he was knocked unconscious and needed rescuing.

"I must have hit the water at about 90 miles an hour. I was aiming to do a stall on landing but the heat was too intense so from about 40 feet up I just put the nose down and plummeted in."

Two boats rushed to Mr Harrington's assistance after he got out of the burning motorglider.

One boat picked Mr Harrington up and took him to shore, whereafter both boats reversed up to the burning plane and used the wash from their propellers to put the fire out.

The motorglider was towed to shore and lifted out of the dam on Sunday afternoon.

Mr Harrington was taken to Proserpine Hospital for smoke inhalation and released on Monday afternoon.

He said he was not sure how he escaped unharmed.

"Everything was burned around me. All the instruments were burned, the stuff alongside me, my luggage, that was all burned. And yet not even a hair was singed," he said.

Mr Harrington said he wanted to thank everyone who helped him.

"People have been so good to me, so helpful. The guys in the boats, the people in the hospital - I can't thank them enough."