{"id":271006,"date":"2026-05-14T15:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T15:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/271006\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T15:49:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T15:49:07","slug":"florida-crew-recounts-miraculous-atlantic-plane-rescue-with-fuel-low-us-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/271006\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida crew recounts \u2018miraculous\u2019 Atlantic plane rescue with fuel low | US news"},"content":{"rendered":"

A military rescue crew in Florida<\/a> has spoken of the \u201cpretty miraculous\u201d survival of all 11 people it saved from a plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean, and its own scramble to safety with five minutes of fuel left.<\/p>\n

Members of the 920th rescue wing, based at Patrick Space Force base, not far from Cape Canaveral, raced on Tuesday to reach the passengers and crew in choppy seas. They had emerged from a small Beechcraft twin-propeller aircraft that ditched into the water about 80 miles east of Melbourne on Florida\u2019s east coast.<\/p>\n

By the time their rescuers arrived, in a Combat King II transport plane and a HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter, the survivors \u2013 all Bahamian adults \u2013 had been packed into the only tiny life raft they had, for about five hours. There was no sign of the plane or any wreckage, and the first responders said the passengers would have had no idea that help was on the way.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve not known anyone to survive ditching in the ocean,\u201d Maj Elizabeth Piowaty, the transport plane\u2019s pilot, told a press conference at the base on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd from what I\u2019ve seen, for all those people to survive is pretty miraculous, and then get in the raft all together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over almost an hour and a half, using a winch and basket, the helicopter crew made nine lifts in choppy seas to get all the survivors onboard, then fly them to waiting ambulances at Melbourne airport.<\/p>\n

Lt Col Matt Johnson, who piloted the helicopter, revealed that his aircraft had only about five minutes of available fuel remaining for the rescue operation when the last of those in the raft was hoisted up.<\/p>\n

He told reporters that moment was \u201cbingo time\u201d, a colloquial military term for the \u201chard time that we need to leave the scene and go back because we\u2019re low on gas\u201d.<\/p>\n

His helicopter, he said, had the capability of in-flight refueling \u201cif we exceeded our bingo fuel and we\u2019re running low\u201d, but the operation would have delayed getting the survivors, some of whom needed urgent medical attention, to shore.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe did not need to do that yesterday, but we were ready to go,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Piowaty said an incoming thunderstorm added urgency to the search, which was initiated by an alert from the plane\u2019s emergency beacon that activated on impact and was picked up by the US Coast Guard.<\/p>\n

The aircraft was reportedly on an internal flight between the Bahamas<\/a> islands of Marsh Harbour and Grand Bahama when it ditched. The cause of its sudden emergency is under investigation.<\/p>\n

Air force Capt Rory Whipple, one of the crew members who was winched down to the life raft, said the survivors \u201cwere in distress, physically, mentally, emotionally\u201d after so long in the ocean, unaware of whether there was any possibility of a rescue.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t even know that we were coming until we were directly overhead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo you have to imagine the emotional injuries that were sustained out there and not knowing if someone was going to rescue them. But that\u2019s our job. We have the best job in the world, on someone\u2019s worst day we are at our best to bring everyone home.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A military rescue crew in Florida has spoken of the \u201cpretty miraculous\u201d survival of all 11 people it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271007,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-271006","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\/271006","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=271006"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271006\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271007"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271006"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271006"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271006"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}