A man and two children were found alive Monday after their small plane crashed on a frozen lake in Alaska.
The three people were found near the wreckage of the Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula after it was reported overdue the night before, according to NBC News.
The three — the pilot and two children— were taken to a hospital after the plane’s wreckage was discovered near the east side of Tustumena Lake, Alaska State Troopers confirmed to Alaska’s News Source.
The outlet reported the three — who are immediate family members — were found after roughly 12 hours on the Kenai Peninsula lake.
A family friend, Scott Holmes, had posted a call for help on Facebook with comment from the missing pilot’s father, John B. Morris, informing others to be on the lookout for the missing aircraft.
“Attention all pilots or aircraft flying today. Missing aircraft, please if your flying on the kenai peninsula .3/24/25. My son is long overdue from a Sunday afternoon flight. The troopers contacted Verizon. His cell phone last pinged in the tustumena lake area,” the post read.
“My two granddaughters are on board also. There are friends ready to search at daylight. But this is my plea for any and all help to locate my family.”
After the three people were found, Holmes wrote in an update to his post.
“They have been found and walking around so no more planes unless you have the ability to rescue. Plane went through the ice.”
Once they were rescued, Holmes updated the post again, writing, “**Just in, they are in the air warming up!”
Troopers previously said they received a report late Sunday that a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser was overdue. It listed suspected locations as Tustumena Lake and the Kenai Mountains, east of Homer. The 60,000-acre lake has been described by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as “notorious for its sudden dangerous winds.”
Alaska’s News Source also reposted that a local pilot, Dale Eicher, called the troopers for help when he heard over the radio that the aircraft had been spotted on the frozen lake.
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“I called the troopers immediately because I was still in cell service and I knew it was a really good chance that the guy that had found him was not in cell service,” Eicher told the outlet. “I was really shocked. I didn’t expect that we would find them. I didn’t expect that we would find them alive for sure…it doesn’t always turn out this well.”
An Alaska Army National Guard Blackhawk medevac went out to where the wreckage was reported and found the three people on the wing of the Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser, according to ABC News.
The National Transportation Safety Board told the outlet that it is still unclear what caused the crash and it will be interviewing the pilot and working on recovering the aircraft for further investigation.
The rescue comes just one month after another small plane was reported missing in western Alaska on its way to the hub community of Nome.
That plane was found crashed Feb. 7 on sea ice, and all 10 people aboard the Bering Air flight were killed, authorities said.
Mike Salerno, a spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard, said rescuers were searching the aircraft’s last known location by helicopter when they spotted the wreckage. They lowered two rescue swimmers to investigate.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s Alaska regional office said on X that three bodies were found inside the aircraft, but the remaining seven victims were “inaccessible due to the condition of the plane.”
“From reports we have received, the crash was not survivable,” the Nome Volunteer Fire Department said in a Facebook post. “Our thoughts are with the families at this time.”
The Bering Air Caravan, a single-engine turboprop, was heading from Unalakleet to Nome on the afternoon of Feb. 6 with nine adult passengers and a pilot, according to Alaska’s Department of Public Safety.
Global Affairs Canada said in a statement to Global News that it was aware of the missing plane, but “based on current information, no Canadians are believed to be on the flight.”
The Nome Volunteer Fire Department reported the plane missing in a Facebook post on Feb. 7, asking the public not to form individual search parties for the missing plane due to bad weather and safety concerns.
— with files from Global News’ Sean Boynton and The Associated Press
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