Pilot, Stepdaughter, Her Husband, All Survive Plane Crash at Sea
Survivors drifted, then clung to a lobster-trap buoy until they were rescued.
Oct. 12, 2009— -- Three people survived a small plane crash off the Florida Keys by clinging to a lobster-trap buoy until the Coast Guard rescued them the next morning.
Peeter Jakobson, 61, was flying the single-engine aircraft toward his home in Marathon Key Friday night. His wife was having a birthday party that weekend.
Jakobson was performing his prelanding check about 15 minutes away from Marathon when he heard a subtle bang at around 9:30 p.m. Then, the engine stalled and the plane started to go down.
Jakobson, a doctor, called out a Mayday to air traffic controllers in Miami and relayed the plane's position.
"We didn't know what was going to happen," said Whitney Page, Jakobson's stepdaughter, 26, who was on the craft with her husband, Ben Page, 31.
With five minutes to impact, the three prepared for the inevitable. Whitney Page got out life jackets -– two of them –- and her husband was shown the handle to the plane's door and told what to do when craft hit the water.
The three were out of the plane and onto the wing of the aircraft within seconds after the impact.
"It was black; total darkness," Whitney Page said on "Good Morning America" today, saying that they were shocked to find themselves out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico.
The family tied the life jackets together, and floated in the warm ocean until they came to a buoy.
They clung to it for 12 hours while hoping to be rescued and could see and hear rescue boats and airplanes in the distance.
Even so, they knew rescuers were searching a large area, about 2,300 square miles.
"They say needle in the haystack, and that's what we were," said Ben Page of Tampa, Fla.
Page, who had been bleeding from the head, was also worried about another danger.
"I was thinking of open wounds in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. And sharks. It was on all of our minds," he said. "We just tried to stay calm. Lots of prayer. The Lord's Prayer was said many times."
Rescue Crews Arrive
They spent 12 hours in the ocean and were stung by countless jellyfish.
Around 10 a.m. Saturday, the three were rescued by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Whitney Page laughed and cried.
Her husband called their survival nothing short of a miracle.
In a statement to "Good Morning America," Jakobson thanked all the people who were involved in the family's rescue and subsequent treatment at Fishermen's Hospital.
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