A pilot and his two young daughters survived on the wing of an airplane for about 12 hours after the aircraft on which they were traveling crashed and became partially submerged in a frozen Alaskan lake. The Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser was sightseeing from Soldotna to Skilak Lake on the Kenai Peninsula.
Making the announcement that the aircraft was missing from radar was John Morris, the father of the pilot. The alert via social media was seen by several private aviators, including Terry Godes, the volunteer who spotted the aircraft near Lake Tustumena.
“It kind of broke my heart to see that, but as I got closer down and lower, I could see that there’s three people on top of the wing,”Godes said to AP, “They were alive and responsive and moving around.”
The three were later rescued by the Alaska Army National Guard after Godes raised the alarm. They were rushed to the hospital, but their condition was stable despite the freezing temperatures they had been exposed to for hours.
Godes said that the Piper passengers, despite the mishap, should consider themselves decidedly lucky. The three managed to survive not only the crash of the aircraft, but also the approximately -4 degrees (F). The plane did not sink thanks to the ice, but without Godes’ rescue those present would undoubtedly have died of hypothermia.
As reported by local National Guard officials, rescue operations were quite complex. The pilot, in particular, had ended up in the water following the crash, and he was the one most at risk of freezing to death.
Alaska has few roads, so many communities are forced to rely on small planes to get around. Last month alone, 10 people died when a passenger aircraft crashed on ice in Norton Sound, near Nome, on the state’s west coast.
