Searchers find missing plane, human remains in Michigan's Lake Huron after 17 years

BOIS BLANC ISLAND, Mich. -- Searchers discovered a small plane that crashed in Michigan's Lake Huron 17 years ago, as well as the remains of a long-missing passenger, state police said Wednesday.

The remains were identified as H. Brooke Stauffer Jr., 56, who lived in Washington, D.C. He was a passenger in a plane that had departed Mackinac Island for a small town in Michigan's Lower Peninsula in August 2007.

Stauffer and the pilot, his fiancee Karen Dodds, were in a Socata TB-20 Trinidad when the plane disappeared. Her remains were found two months after the crash, east of the Mackinac Bridge, but there was no sign of the plane or Stauffer.

“In October 2023, Great Lakes Search & Recovery, a private company, resumed the search efforts at the request of family members,” state police said. “In August of 2024, members of the search team discovered plane wreckage near Bois Blanc Island.”

State police divers subsequently found skeletal remains, and the Center for Forensic Anthropology at Northern Michigan University confirmed Stauffer's identity with help from dental records, authorities said.

Stauffer was director of standards and safety for the National Electrical Contractors Association.

“He was a prolific writer, and the author of several technical books, numerous magazine articles, a children's novel and a guidebook for Washington, D.C.,” his obituary said.

Dodds, 52, had her own business, Dodds Design, a graphic web design and marketing company in Washington.