Eleven people were rescued after their plane crashed on Tuesday, May 12, about 130 km off the coast of Melbourne, Florida.
The ten passengers and the pilot were saved by the U.S. Air Force in an extraordinary rescue operation. It appears that the small aircraft—a Beechcraft King Air 300 turboprop flying over the Bahamas—experienced an engine failure. After alerting authorities to the emergency, the pilot decided to ditch the plane as gently as possible and evacuate the passengers onto a yellow inflatable raft.
Fortunately, the emergency locator transmitter (ELT) continued to send signals, allowing rescuers to pinpoint the crash site and locate the survivors. Captain Rory Whipple said: “They had already been in the water, in the raft, for about five hours, and you could tell just by looking at them that they were in distress—physically, mentally, emotionally.”
Three of them sustained minor injuries, but overall they were in good condition. Whipple added: “They didn’t even know that we were coming until we were directly overhead. You have to imagine the emotional injuries they sustained out there, not knowing if someone was going to rescue them.”
The flight, which was supposed to last only twenty minutes between Marsh Harbour on Great Abaco Island and Grand Bahama International Airport in Freeport, turned into a harrowing ordeal—with a happy ending.
