11 rescued after plane ditches in Atlantic off Florida coast

The survival chain started with a signal, not a splash. After a twin-engine turboprop carrying 11 people lost its fight over the Atlantic Ocean about 80 miles east of Melbourne, Florida, the aircraft sent an emergency locator transmitter signal that pulled Coast Guard watchstanders and Air Force rescue crews into motion.

The chartered flight had departed Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas’ Abaco Islands and was headed to Freeport, Grand Bahama, when pilot Ian Nixon, a veteran Bahamian aviator, put the plane down in the ocean. The 11 people aboard survived the ditching, and the Coast Guard identified them as Bahamian adults. One passenger later summed up the outcome in three words: “We got saved.”

What happened next shows how maritime aviation rescues succeed when equipment, training and coordination line up. Coast Guard Southeast District watchstanders coordinated the effort while Reserve Airmen assigned to the 920th Rescue Wing joined the response. The 920th, based at Patrick Space Force Base in Florida, is the Air Force Reserve Command’s first and only combat search and rescue unit, a specialty built for exactly this kind of mission.

The survivors spent about five hours in a raft before rescue crews pulled them to safety, according to NBC News. Reuters reported that all 11 lived through the crash and that three were injured, though none seriously. That combination of a distress beacon, a quick maritime response and a specialized Air Force rescue team prevented the incident from becoming a mass-casualty disaster in one of the busiest aviation corridors off Florida’s east coast.

Rescuers also benefited from one crucial break: an Air Force aircraft spotted the plane before rescue crews reached the scene. In a case like this, every minute matters. The beacon narrowed the search area, the Coast Guard coordinated across agencies, and the 920th Rescue Wing brought the personnel and capability to recover people from open water. The result was a rare ending to an ocean ditching that left all 11 passengers alive and showed how survival at sea often depends on systems most travelers never see until the worst moment arrives.