Family Survives 12 Hours at Sea after Ditching Aircraft

A happy ending to a flight over the Florida Keys is always a pleasure to hear or read. I just want to compliment everyone for keeping their heads about them and for at least having the life preservers available and everyone informed of their duties. In this case a life raft probably wasn't warranted, maybe not even feasible to have on board. I wonder if the pilot had a waterproof bag with a backup radio and maybe flares on board? If so, maybe it wasn't easily found or lost in the escape. I dunno. A little kid like this always comes in handy with 20/20 hindsight available and in ditches in water landings... lakotahope


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ABC
By SUZAN CLARKE and RICH MCHUGH
Oct. 12, 2009

Three people survived a small plane crash off the Florida Keys by clinging to a lobster-trap buoy until the Coast Guard rescued them the next morning.

Peeter Jakobson, 61, was flying the single-engine aircraft toward his home in Marathon Key Friday night. His wife was having a birthday party that weekend.

Jakobson was performing his pre-landing check about 15 minutes away from Marathon when he heard a subtle bang at around 9:30 p.m. Then, the engine stalled and the plane started to go down.

Jakobson, a doctor, called out a Mayday to air traffic controllers in Miami and relayed the plane's position.

"We didn't know what was going to happen," said Whitney Page, Jakobson's stepdaughter, 26, who was on the craft with her husband, Ben Page, 31.

With five minutes to impact, the three prepared for the inevitable. Whitney Page got out life jackets -– two of them –- and her husband was shown the handle to the plane's door and told what to do when craft hit the water.

The three were out of the plane and onto the wing of the aircraft within seconds after the impact.

"It was black; total darkness," Whitney Page said on "Good Morning America" today, saying that they were shocked to find themselves out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.

The family tied the life jackets together, and floated in the warm ocean until they came to a buoy.

They clung to it for 12 hours while hoping to be rescued, and could see and hear rescue boats and airplanes in the distance.

Even so, they knew rescuers were searching a large area, about 2,300 square miles.

"They say needle in the haystack, and that's what we were," said Ben Page of Tampa, Fla.

Page, who had been bleeding from the head, also was worried about another danger.

"I was thinking of open wounds in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. And sharks. It was on all of our minds," he said. "We just tried to stay calm. Lots of prayer. The Lord's Prayer was said many times."

Rescue Crews Arrive

They spent 12 hours in the ocean, and were stung by countless jellyfish.

Around 10 a.m. Saturday, the three were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.

Whitney Page laughed and cried.

Her husband called their survival nothing short of a miracle.