• A small plane carrying a father and his two daughters crashed on an icy lake in Alaska on March 23
• The pilot and his young children survived on the wing of the plane for roughly 12 hours following the crash
• “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,” said Terry Godes, who located the aircraft during a voluntary search

New details have emerged following the rescue of a dad and his two daughters after their small plane crashed on a frozen lake in Alaska.

According to the Associated Press, the pilot and his young children survived on the wing of the plane for roughly 12 hours following the crash on a Kenai Peninsula lake on Sunday, March 23. 

In a statement, the Alaska Department of Public Saftey said the aircraft was spotted by a “good Samaritan” on Monday, March 24, after the Alaska State Troopers received a report shortly after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday of “an overdue Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser aircraft that had not returned.”

Terry Godes, the good Samaritan, told the AP that he saw a Facebook post on Sunday evening asking for help to search for the missing plane. According to the outlet, the plane did not have a locator beacon.

Godes then went out to search for the aircraft on Monday morning and headed toward Tustumena Lake, which is south of Anchorage, spotting what he thought was the 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 outlet.

“They were alive and responsive and moving around,” Godes continued, adding that the trio waved at him. “They spent a long, cold, dark, wet night out on top of a wing of an airplane that they weren’t planning on.”

After locating the plane, Godes alerted other searching pilots that he had found the aircraft, according to the outlet.

Another pilot, Dale Eicher, then told the authorities that the wreckage had been found an hour into the search and relayed the plane’s coordinates.

“I called the troopers immediately because I was still in cell service and I knew it was a really good chance that the guy that had found him was not in cell service,” Eicher told KTUU. “I was really shocked. I didn’t expect that we would find them. I didn’t expect that we would find them alive for sure … it doesn’t always turn out this well.”

The family members were rescued by the Alaska Army National Guard around 10:30 a.m. on Monday near the eastern side of Tustemena Lake, per the release from the Alaska Department of Public Safety.

They were taken to a local hospital for treatment for non-life-threatening injuries. Police told KTUU that the younger passengers were of elementary and middle school age.

According to AP, the plane — a Piper PA-12 Super Cruiser — was on a sightseeing trip from Soldotna to Skilak Lake on the Kenai Peninsula at the time of the incident. 

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The pilot’s father, John Morris, also shared a social media post early on Monday asking for people’s help when the family disappeared. 

“There are friends ready to search at daylight. But this is my plea for any and all help to locate my family,” the AP reported.

Morris later praised the Kenai community for their help, telling KTUU that he had “air in my lungs again” after his son and the children.

The rescue involved an Alaska Army National Guard helicopter, which was dispatched from its base in Anchorage, per AP.

Lt. Col. Brendon Holbrook told the outlet that the helicopter had to hover to the side of the crashed aircraft and pull the family members on board as the initial plan of using a hoist to pick them up from the wing proved too dangerous.

Holbrook said that the man had been in the water following the crash, adding, “We don’t know to what extent, but he was hypothermic.”

“It was literally the best possible scenario and outcome,” Holbrook continued of the rescue. “Ultimately, the crew of that airplane were lucky because, from what my guys told me, that plane was in the ice with the tail refrozen and if that tail hadn’t refrozen, it would have sunk.”

Mark Ward, an investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board’s Alaska division, said the pilot had not yet reported the accident and the NTSB had been trying to contact him, per AP.