In 25 years of flying, pilot Ian Nixon had never faced anything like the crash that left him and ten passengers stranded for hours in the Atlantic Ocean, waiting to be rescued off Florida’s east coast.
On Tuesday, during what should have been a routine 20-minute flight between two islands in the Bahamas, Nixon watched one disaster unfold after another – first the navigation system, then the radio, then one engine, and finally the other.
“I wasn’t able to reach anybody on the radio for a while,” Nixon said. “I tried to call Freeport, [Bahamas]; I tried to call Miami radio. I don’t know if they were hearing me, but I didn’t get a response,” Nixon told CBS News, the BBC’s US news partner.
The plane was headed from Marsh Harbour, in the Bahamas’ Abaco Islands, to Freeport, Grand Bahama.
“Once I hit the water, my first thought was: ‘We didn’t die,'” Nixon said.
Handout Air Force Reserve Command 920th Rescue WingWhat followed was an hours-long ordeal on a life raft, as the pilot and the passengers waited for rescuers to find them.
Nixon tried to keep spirits up.
“I told them: ‘In the next 10 minutes, a plane is going to come,'” he said. “Then one of the passengers said: ‘Hold on, did I hear something?'”
It was the distant sound of a helicopter from the US Air Force 920th Rescue Wing.
The unit was on a training mission when it was redirected to assist in the search and rescue effort after an emergency locator transmitter signal alerted the US Coast Guard about a potential distress situation.
“They had already been in the raft for about five hours,” Capt Rory Whipple said. “You could tell just by looking at them that they were in distress – physically, mentally and emotionally.”
The rescuers worked against the clock to bring all the passengers to safety before the helicopters needed to refuel.
“I have not known anyone to survive a ditching in the ocean,” Maj Elizabeth Piowaty, an aircraft commander who assisted with the rescue, said. “And, from what I’ve seen, I mean, for all those people to survive is pretty miraculous.”
All 11 people on board were taken to a Florida hospital. Three suffered minor injuries.
“Everybody was rejoicing to know that we get saved because we thought we were going to die,” Olympia Outten, one of the passengers on the plane, said afterwards. “That was a scene that [was] just like it was a movie.”
The Bahamian authorities are investigating the cause of the crash.
