Pilot Reveals Incredible Scene After Discovering Plane Crash in Alaska
“It’s a cold dark place out there at night,” pilot Terry Godes said of the area of the crash scene.

Joe Raedle/Getty Images
A rescuer has revealed how he spotted a pilot and two children clinging to the wing of a plane which had crashed and partially submerged into a frozen Alaska lake. Terry Godes told the Associated Press that he saw a Facebook post on Sunday asking for help locating a missing plane, a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser. The missing aircraft was piloted by a man with two “immediate juvenile family members aboard,” the Associated Press reported. The plane had set off on a recreational sightseeing tour from Soldotna to Skilak Lake on the Kenai Peninsula. Godes set off towards Tustumena Lake on Monday looking for the aircraft and eventually spotted what appeared like wreckage. “It kind of broke my heart to see that, but as I got closer down and lower, I could see that there’s three people on top of the wing,” he told The Associated Press on Tuesday. Adding that he could see people waving to him from below, Godes said he could see that “they were alive and responsive and moving around.” The Alaska Army National Guard subsequently rescued the trio, who were taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries. “They spent a long, cold, dark, wet night out on top of a wing of an airplane that they weren’t planning on,” Godes said. “It’s a cold dark place out there at night.”
New images show a pilot and two children stranded amid the wreckage of a small plane that landed on Tustumena Lake late Sunday night. FULL STORY 👉 https://t.co/8yXUkeWH79
— Alaska's News Source (@AKNewsNow) March 25, 2025
📷: Courtesy Dale Eicher pic.twitter.com/Wf2KJdO2Zl
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