Plane crash in Alaska Dad and two children survive 12 hours on the wing
A man and two children crash their plane onto a remote icy lake. They have to wait out the night in a precarious situation. An appeal on social media finally saves them.
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- A father and his two children have been rescued from the half-submerged wreckage of their crashed small plane in southern Alaska.
- US media published pictures of the lonely plane in the middle of the icy Alaskan wilderness.
- Following a Facebook post, a dozen pilots set off on Monday morning to help in the search for the missing plane.
After a small plane crashed in the US state of Alaska, the pilot and his two children spent twelve hours on a wing before they could be rescued. The Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser propeller plane was reported missing near Lake Tustumena on Sunday evening (local time).
Several volunteers then launched a search operation with their aircraft. Twelve hours later, the missing plane was discovered on the frozen lake in the US state, according to rescue workers.
Following a Facebook post, a dozen pilots set off on Monday morning to help in the search for the missing plane. Terry Godes headed for Lake Tustumena near a glacier and discovered the wreckage there.
"It broke my heart to see it, but as I got closer and deeper, I could see that there were three people sitting on the wing," he told the AP news agency on Tuesday. "They were alive and responsive and moving." The family is out of danger and has been taken to hospital, police spokesman Austin McDaniel told the media the day before.
The 24,200-hectare Tustumena Lake, where the plane was found, is "notorious for its sudden and dangerous winds", as the Alaska Department of Fish and Game explained. It was initially unclear why the plane crashed. The US Transportation Department and the Federal Aviation Administration want to investigate the incident.
"Ultimately, the crew of the plane was lucky because from what my people have told me, the tail of the plane was frozen into the ice. And if the tail hadn't refrozen, it would have sunk," said Lt. Col. Brendon Holbrook of the Alaska Army National Guard, who ultimately rescued the family by helicopter.
