Air Force helicopter rescues 11 Bahamian survivors from sinking plane

A distress beacon over the Atlantic set off a rescue race that ended with an Air Force helicopter hoisting 11 Bahamian adults from a life raft just as its fuel clock was running down.

Around 11 a.m. Tuesday, May 12, 2026, an emergency locator transmitter from a Beechcraft BE30 twin-turboprop that had departed Abaco Island in the Bahamas alerted U.S. Coast Guard Southeast District watchstanders. The aircraft had gone down about 80 miles off the coast of Melbourne, Florida, leaving no immediate visual location, only the beacon to guide rescuers into open water.

Minutes later, a 920th Rescue Wing HH-60W Jolly Green II helicopter that was already airborne on a training mission was redirected to the search. A Coast Guard Air Station Clearwater C-27 Spartan and an HC-130J Combat King II from Patrick Space Force Base also joined the effort, turning the response into a tight military coordination over the Atlantic. Maj. Elizabeth Piowaty said the ELT was the only information initially relayed to rescuers, forcing crews to work outward from a single electronic signal in a broad stretch of ocean.

The survivors were found after roughly five hours adrift on a life raft. Capt. Rory Whipple said, “They had already been in the raft for about five hours.” He also said the survivors did not know help was coming until the aircraft was directly overhead, a reminder of how little margin there was between survival and collapse as dehydration became the biggest immediate threat. Military officials said the 11 people were physically, mentally and emotionally distressed, though no major injuries were reported.

Once the helicopter found the raft, the rescue crew had only minutes of fuel left to complete the hoist and get everyone airborne. All 11 were lifted to safety and flown to Melbourne Orlando International Airport, ending a mission that was as much about timing as it was about seamanship and airpower. Air Force Reserve personnel and Coast Guard watchstanders called the outcome “miraculous.”

The rescue also highlighted the role of the 920th Rescue Wing, Air Force Reserve Command’s only combat search and rescue wing, based at Patrick Space Force Base in Brevard County. Off Florida’s Atlantic coast, where military and aerospace traffic routinely share the same airspace and water, the mission showed how quickly crews can be mobilized when a plane goes down over open ocean and how much offshore search-and-rescue readiness depends on aircraft already in motion.