Pilot and 2 young daughters survive the night on airplane wing after
crashing into icy Alaska lake
[March 26, 2025]
By MARK THIESSEN
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — A pilot and his two young daughters survived on
the wing of a plane for about 12 hours after it crashed and was
partially submerged in an icy Alaska lake, then were rescued after being
spotted by a good Samaritan.
Terry Godes said he saw a Facebook post Sunday night calling for people
to help search for the missing plane, which did not have a locator
beacon. On Monday morning about a dozen pilots including Godes headed
out to scour the rugged terrain. Godes headed toward Tustumena Lake near
the toe of a glacier and spotted what he thought was wreckage.
“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,” he
told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
After saying a prayer, he continued to approach and saw a miracle.
“They were alive and responsive and moving around,” Godes said, adding
that they waved at him.
The missing Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser, piloted by a man with two
juvenile immediate family members aboard, was on a sightseeing tour from
Soldotna to Skilak Lake on the Kenai Peninsula. It was not immediately
clear how old the juveniles were.
In a social media post early Monday, John Morris implored people to help
search for his son and granddaughters, saying they were late returning
from a Sunday afternoon flight.
“There are friends ready to search at daylight. But this is my plea for
any and all help to locate my family,” he wrote.
The three were rescued on the eastern edge of Tustumena Lake on Monday
by the Alaska Army National Guard after Godes alerted other searching
pilots that he had found it. Another pilot, Dale Eicher, heard Godes'
radio call and related it to troopers since he was closer to Skilak Lake
and figured he had better cell reception. He was also able to provide
the plane's coordinates to authorities.
“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. But
finding the family alive within an hour of starting the search “was very
good news.”
The three were taken to a hospital with injuries that were not
considered life-threatening, Alaska State Troopers said.
Godes said many miracles were at play, from the plane not sinking, to
the survivors being able to stay atop the wing, to them surviving
nighttime temperatures dipping into the 20s (subzero Celsius).
“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.
Alaska has few roads, leaving many communities to rely on small
airplanes to get around.
Last month 10 people died when a small commuter plane that was
overweight by half a ton crashed onto sea ice in the Norton Sound, near
Nome on the state’s western coast.
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This photo provided by the Alaska National Guard shows an airplane
partially submerged into the ice of Tustumena Lake at the toe of a
glacier on Monday, March 24, 2025, near Soldotna, Alaska. (Alaska
National Guard via AP)
And five years ago, a midair collision near the Soldotna airport
claimed seven lives including that of a state lawmaker.
For this week's rescue, the National Guard dispatched a helicopter
from its base in Anchorage.
The initial plan of using a hoist to pluck them from the wing proved
too dangerous, as the the smallest girl was being buffeted and blown
around by the wind created by the helicopter, said Lt. Col. Brendon
Holbrook, commander of the 207th Aviation Regiment. So instead the
aircraft hovered to the side and pulled them on board.
Personnel reported that the girls were surprisingly dry but the man
had been in the water at some point, Holbrook said: “We don't know
to what extent, but he was hypothermic.”
Holbrook said he was told they had basic clothing one would wear on
small planes without very good heating systems, but nothing
sufficient to keep warm outside in wintry temperatures with cold
winds blowing on the lake.
“It was literally the best possible scenario and outcome,” Holbrook
said. "Ultimately the crew of that airplane were lucky, because from
what my guys told me, that plane was in the ice with the tail
refrozen, and if that tail hadn’t refrozen, it would have sunk.”
The 60,000-acre (24,200-hectare) Tustumena Lake, the largest
freshwater body on the Kenai Peninsula, is about 80 miles (130
kilometers) southwest of Anchorage, with nearby mountains and a
glacier.
It has been described by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game as
“notorious for its sudden, dangerous winds,” with conditions that
can cause havoc for both boats and planes.
“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.
Godes agreed that the area is always windy and the water can be
whipped up into waves.
“Then just the way it’s placed right there at the heel of that, or
at the toe of that glacier where you’ve got mountains on both sides,
you know, just a few miles to the west, you’ve got Cook Inlet
running back and forth with huge temperature and tidal swings every
day,” he said. “It’s just a recipe for chaos and for turbulence.”
There was no indication yet why the plane crashed.
Mark Ward, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety
Board’s Alaska division, said the pilot had not yet reported the
accident, nor had the agency been able to contact him. Efforts were
to be made again Wednesday to speak to him.
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