[Image: GetArchive]
Call it froezen fate.
A Good Samaritan’s quick thinking and bold action saved a pilot and two children who endured nearly 12 agonising hours stranded on the wing of their wrecked plane in the freezing waters of an Alaskan lake.
The small aircraft, a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser, went down in Tustumena Lake on Sunday during what was supposed to be a scenic flight.
Terry Godes, scanning Facebook, spotted a desperate plea for help in the search effort. Wasting no time, he took to the skies early Monday. As he flew near the glacier-fed lake, his heart sank at the sight of what he first assumed was debris.
“It kind of broke my heart to see that,” Godes said via the Independent.
As he got closer, however, a glimmer of hope emerged.
“I could see that there’s three people on top of the wing,” he said.
The survivors weren’t just alive, they were waving, signaling for help. Relief flooded through Godes as he sent up a brief prayer of thanks and immediately radioed his discovery to fellow pilots scouring the area.
Dale Eicher, another pilot nearby, caught Godes’s transmission. With better cell service, he relayed the coordinates to authorities. The Alaska National Guard wasted no time, swooping in to pluck the stranded trio from their perilous perch on the sinking wreckage.
“I wasn’t sure if we would find them, especially because there was a cloud layer over quite a bit of the mountains so they could have very easily been in those clouds that we couldn’t get to,” Eicher said.
Finding them alive within an hour of the search beginning was nothing short of miraculous.
The ill-fated flight had taken off from Soldotna on Sunday, bound for Skilak Lake on the Kenai Peninsula. What caused the crash remains under investigation. Alaska State Troopers confirmed the survivors were hospitalised with injuries but, incredibly, none were life-threatening.
“They spent a long, cold, dark, wet night out on top of a wing of an airplane that they weren’t planning on,” Godes said.
A string of miracles had kept them alive—the plane hadn’t sunk, they had managed to stay atop the wing, and they had survived subzero temperatures through the brutal night.
“It’s a cold, dark place out there at night,” he said.
The wreckage, mostly submerged, left only part of the wing and the rudder visible above the icy waters.
Tustumena Lake, a vast 24,200-hectare body of water about 130 kilometres southwest of Anchorage, has a deadly reputation. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game warns of its “notorious” and sudden violent winds.
The lake’s surroundings – steep mountains, a glacier, and unpredictable gusts – can turn a routine flight or boat trip into a fight for survival.
“Even under what would be considered a benign or relatively weak pressure gradient, the terrain helps turn the winds around, and occasionally they get a little squirrelly,” said Michael Kutz, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Anchorage.
Alaska’s remote landscape leaves many communities reliant on small planes for transportation. But the risks are real.
In February, a commuter plane overloaded by half a ton crashed into the icy waters of Norton Sound near Nome, killing all 10 people aboard. And five years ago, a midair collision near Soldotna airport claimed seven lives, including that of an Alaska state lawmaker.
This latest crash could have easily added to the grim tally. But thanks to a stranger’s determination, three people are alive today.
[Source: Independent]
