HONG KONG — When Bill Jaynes realized water was rushing into the plane, he started to panic.

Mr. Jaynes, a Micronesian journalist, was aboard a plane set to land on Weno, the tiny Pacific island that is part of the Federated States of Micronesia.

“I thought we landed hard until I looked over and saw a hole in the side of the plane and water was coming in,” he said in a Facebook video, describing the landing of a Boeing 737-800 flown by Air Niugini at Chuuk International Airport on Friday morning. “And I thought, well, this is not, like, the way it’s supposed to happen.”

But then help suddenly arrived — from a flotilla of local boats that rushed to the plane, which landed short of the runway in the Chuuk lagoon, and all 47 passengers aboard the aircraft were evacuated, according to early statement from the airline.

“It’s just surreal,” said Mr. Jaynes, managing editor of The Kaselehlie Press, a newspaper on Pohnpei, another Micronesian island.