PALMER — Four people suffering from hypothermia were rescued in the Knik River Valley last week after their small plane landed atop Lake George and punched through the ice.
The plane did not emit an emergency alert and rescuers got no indication of any trouble, so the group spent hours in the cold before help arrived, authorities say.
The pilot and three passengers were hypothermic and taken to an Anchorage hospital for treatment, the Alaska State Troopers said. All four were expected to make a full recovery.
A listing in a Federal Aviation Administration database published Tuesday described their injuries as serious. The plane involved is a Cessna A185F registered to a Colorado man. He could not be reached for comment.
It wasn’t immediately clear what time the plane initially went through the ice.
Photos of the incident posted on social media indicated the plane touched down and then the front end submerged. Footsteps extended away from a small area of open water surrounding the aircraft.
Alaska Air National Guard rescuers picked up the group as they walked out around 10 p.m., Guard spokesman Alan Brown said.
No emergency alert was picked up and it didn’t appear anyone involved in the incident had a satellite communications device, Brown said.
“It was very fortunate that we were able to see them hiking out,” he said, adding that crews used night-imaging technology to see the survivors.
The rescue took place about five hours after the partly submerged plane was originally spotted by a passing pilot.
Around 5 p.m. Friday, someone spotted the Cessna on the ice and alerted Palmer flight officials who in turn alerted the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center, Brown said.
Troopers said the center notified them at about 5:20 p.m. and the Guard’s 210th and 212th rescue squadrons responded.
The crews were busy on another rescue in Johnson Pass at the time, so they first returned from that mission and then refueled at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Brown said. They departed around 8:45 p.m. for Lake George, Brown said.
The incident sparked an online conversation among aviators about the importance of wearing some kind of satellite beacon, such as a Garmin inReach.
It’s likely that the people in this plane had little if any time to grab anything in their rush to evacuate, said National Transportation Safety Board investigator Stacia Joyce.
She recommended keeping an inReach in a pocket, as well as wearing a vest or jacket with essential survival tools and gear.
“You have to plan for the unexpected flying up here,” Joyce said.
The NTSB has not been able to speak with the plane’s owner, so the plane’s recovery status was unclear, she said Tuesday.