{"id":269621,"date":"2026-05-13T16:16:13","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/269621\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T16:16:13","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T16:16:13","slug":"plane-crashes-off-the-east-coast-of-florida-leading-to-dramatic-sea-rescue-of-11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/269621\/","title":{"rendered":"Plane crashes off the east coast of Florida, leading to dramatic sea rescue of 11"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eleven people survived a plane crash at sea and then spent five harrowing hours in a raft before they were plucked to safety during a \u201cmiraculous\u201d rescue, officials said Wednesday.<\/p>\n

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The craft went down about 80 miles from Melbourne on Tuesday and all 11 people on board \u201care accounted for,\u201d according to a Coast Guard statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd from what I\u2019ve seen, I mean, for all those people to survive is pretty miraculous,\u201d Air Force Maj. Elizabeth Piowaty told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

A team of Air Force reservists were training in the area when they got word of a possible downed flight and headed to the scene to find survivors in a raft, Piowaty said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey 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,\u201d Capt. Rory Whipple said.<\/p>\n

\"OrlandoOrlando Melbourne International Airport.Walt Simpson \/ Business Wire via AP<\/p>\n

The survivors had no way to communicate or call for help \u2014 but fortunately their emergency locator transmitter (ELT) beacon<\/a> led rescuers to the scene, according to Piowaty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t even know that we were coming until we were directly overhead,\u201d Whipple said. \u201cSo you have to imagine the emotional injuries that they sustained out there and not knowing if someone\u2019s going to rescue them.\u201d <\/p>\n

The survivors were taking shelter under a tarp to protect themselves from the elements before rescuers dropped food and supplies to tide them over.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were able to spread out their food and water and some basic survival tools,\u201d Piowaty said. \u201cSo giving them that extra hope that we were overhead and we were going to provide rescue for them, I\u2019m sure, was a great relief.\u201d<\/p>\n

The airmen had no idea they\u2019d be executing a dramatic rescue when they woke up on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for us, it\u2019s just another day of work, another day of training,\u201d Whipple said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not training. It was real world. So we just locked in and did what we had to do to make sure everyone came home in one piece.\u201d <\/p>\n

The airmen on Tuesday fought both choppy waters and \u201cbingo time,\u201d the point when rescuers would be forced to either re-fuel in the air or head back to base for fuel, Lt. Col. Matt Johnson.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of us deployed together in previous times on active duty as well,\u201d Johnson said of his fellow rescuers. \u201cWe know our job is efficient and expeditious, pick up of the survivors and get them back to higher medical care, and then let the those doctors fix them up.\u201d <\/p>\n

Whipple said he was grateful for the chance to make a difference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a reserve airman, I truly believe that we have the best job in the world,\u201d he said. \u201cOn someone\u2019s worst day we\u2019re at our best, bringing everyone home. And then at the end of the day, as a reserve airman, we get to go home to our families as well.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eleven people survived a plane crash at sea and then spent five harrowing hours in a raft before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-269621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}