Coast Guard rescues two after plane crash on North Fox Island

A Traverse City Coast Guard helicopter reached North Fox Island quickly Wednesday night, pulling two people from an isolated Lake Michigan crash scene and getting them back to the mainland by 8:45 p.m. Both were reported in stable condition, but the rescue underscored how fast a remote aircraft accident can become a dangerous overnight emergency when help is miles from a road, a hospital, or shelter.

Coast Guard Sector Northern Great Lakes received the plane-crash notification at 6:45 p.m. Wednesday, May 21, and an Air Station Traverse City MH-60 Jayhawk crew launched soon after. Lt. Steven Durfee said the crew was airborne within about 20 minutes of the search-and-rescue alarm, landed right next to the crash site and embarked both people from the aircraft. Durfee said the passengers did the right thing by reaching out for help early. He also said temperatures dipped below freezing that evening, and the two people were not prepared to stay the night on the remote island.

The response showed why Traverse City remains a critical Coast Guard base for northern Michigan. Air Station Traverse City was commissioned on Nov. 15, 1945, as a one-plane detachment for Great Lakes search and rescue, and its area of operations now stretches across all of Lake Michigan and much of Lake Superior and Lake Huron. Sector Northern Great Lakes, which took the initial alert, is responsible for all Coast Guard missions on Lake Superior, northern Lake Michigan and Huron, and the surrounding waterways. In a region defined by cold water, changing weather and long stretches of shoreline without direct access, the ability to launch fast from Traverse City can determine whether a rescue stays controlled or turns catastrophic.

North Fox Island adds its own hazards. The island is uninhabited and sits about 17 miles northwest of Cathead Point near the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula and about 10 miles southwest of Beaver Island. It also has North Fox Island Airport, a public-use airfield identified as 6Y3, at about 639 feet elevation. That isolation helps explain why a crash there quickly becomes a transport mission instead of a conventional emergency response. It also recalls a 2023 incident on the island, when Coast Guard crews responded after two small planes collided and airlifted five people off the island.