A plane crashed into the sea as its two passengers tried to warn a surfer that he was in danger of being attacked by a 20-foot shark.
Australian Bill Ballard went on to claim that dolphins were also looking out for him at Wallagoot Beach on the New South Wales coast, as they "pushed" him back to shore.
The dolphins were feeding on salmon in the area when Ballard noticed their behaviour was different to normal.
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"It's hard to describe, but they kept coming up to the surface to look at me and also began swimming back and forward, coming closer and trying to push me towards the shore," Ballard told Australian newspaper The Courier.
The passengers in the low-flying aircraft then screamed: "Shark, shark!" at Ballard, while pointing out a large shadow of something swimming close to him.
But the drama intensified when the plane then crashed a few metres away from the beach.
Ballard quickly checked on both passengers' conditions and recalled his conversation with one, adding: "She kept saying, 'That shark was so close to you, so close, and it was the biggest one I've ever seen. It must have been around 20 feet long'.
"I am so thankful. They were like guardian angels coming to save me.
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"At first, I thought they must have mistaken it for a dolphin, and I kept asking if they were sure it wasn't, but the pilot said: 'No, I've been flying for years and I know exactly what a shark looks like.'"
Neither passenger was left injured by the crash, while the species of shark remains unknown.
The area of Australia is no stranger to sharks, including the iconic big three – white, tiger and bull.
Leonardo Guida, a shark scientist at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, told Newsweek: "Dolphins and sharks in the same area is not at all uncommon, as they tend to be after the same food or hunt in similar areas.
"I'm not a dolphin expert nor do I know what a dolphin thinks, but the dolphins may have even seen the surfer as a possible competitor for food, and 'pushing' him to shore could have been a way of intimidating him to stay away from their food rather than protecting him from a shark."
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