Florida crew recounts ‘miraculous’ Atlantic plane rescue with fuel low

All 11 onboard survived after the plane made an emergency landing near the Bahamas Sign up for the Breaking News US newsletter email A military rescue crew in Florida has spoken of the “pretty miraculous” 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. 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’s east coast. By the time their rescuers arrived, in a Combat King II transport plane and a HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter, the survivors – all Bahamian adults – 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. “I’ve not known anyone to survive ditching in the ocean,” Maj Elizabeth Piowaty, the transport plane’s pilot, told a press conference at the base on Wedn