A man and two children were found alive Monday after their plane crashed near Tustumena Lake in Alaska on Sunday night.
The plane was reported overdue at 10:32 p.m., leading the Alaska State Troopers to send an alert that the plane could be near the lake or in the Kenai Mountains. On Monday morning, a good Samaritan’s aircraft found the wreckage near the eastern side of Tustumena Lake, AST said in a pair of dispatches.
The plane broke through ice on the lake during the crash and partially sank before the three people on the plane could be rescued. They waited on the wings of the plane, according to Alaska Public Media.
Alaska Army National Guard personnel rescued the occupants of the wrecked plane at about 10:30 a.m. Monday. The three were taken to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, AST added. Neither the occupants of the plane nor the good Samaritan involved have been publicly named by authorities.
The pilot and the two children are immediate family members, AST spokesman Austin McDaniel told The Associated Press.
One of the children is in elementary school; the other is a middle schooler, AST told Anchorage’s KTUU-TV.
John Morris, the father of the 38-year-old pilot from Sterling in the southern part of the state, said he has “air in my lungs again” now that his family members are safe.
