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BEAR CREEK TOWNSHIP, Pa. – “I’m not going to lie, because of the temperatures and the conditions, not being able to locate them, I never expected to find them alive,” said Pennsylvania State Police Sgt. John Richards.
Richards and other rescue crews did find the 58-year-old father and his 13-year-old daughter alive after their plane crashed in a heavily wooded and rocky area of state game lands in Bear Creek Township, Luzerne County.
Richards says a cell ping from the girl’s iPad led rescuers to them.
“They were in shock and they were hurt, and Dad was extremely protective of his daughter,” he said, adding they were the best patients one could ask for.
The pair, who are from Mount Pocono, had taken off from the Wilkes-Barre Scranton International Airport and were headed toward Pocono Mountains Municipal Airport in Tobyhanna Sunday night.
But at 7:30 p.m. the FAA issued an alert when the single-engine Cessna 150 dropped off the radar.
Around 2 a.m. the plane was found more than a mile from the road and about 10 miles from the Wilkes-Barre airport. Officials say the landing gear was torn off, but the plane was upright. The father and daughter were most likely suffering from hypothermia.
Richards says in his 28 years he’s never seen survivors in a plane crash like this.
Planes do come with Electronic Location Transmitters, but those can give only a general area location. The cell ping from the girl’s iPad is what led rescuers directly to the pair.
“I suggest you buy your kids an iPad or Android or some type of cell phone because that is how we found them,” he said, adding how ecstatic everyone was to find them alive.
The pair were taken to the hospital, and the NTSB is investigating the crash.
Via: WFMZ TV 69
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