Fisherman rescues 7 from plane crash off Fort Lauderdale Beach
Published: August 14, 2005
A fisherman became an unlikely hero Saturday after rescuing seven people from a twin-engine plan that had crashed in the Atlantic Ocean six miles from shore.
The unidentified Good Samaritan scooped up the passengers in his fishing boat and rushed them to the U.S. Coast Guard station at John U. Lloyd Beach State Park, then motored away. Everyone survived.
”He was a humble fisherman,” said Coast Guard spokeswoman Sandi Bartlett. “He picked them up out of the water, dropped them off, and rode away.”
One person was taken to Hollywood’s Memorial Regional Hospital to be treated for minor injuries. The other six quietly left the Coast Guard station later Saturday.
The plane, a Piper PA-31, went down around 4 p.m. six miles southeast of the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, according to Kathleen Bergen, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration.
It was not known late Saturday what caused the plane to crash.
The Piper, coming from the North Eleuthera Islands in the Bahamas, was preparing to land when something happened, Bergen said. The Fort Lauderdale airport’s FAA tower received a distress call from the pilot shortly before 4 p.m.
A few minutes later, the plane crashed into the ocean.
By the time a Coast Guard helicopter and several rescue boats arrived, the anonymous fisherman had already pulled the passengers onto his boat. Rescue boats escorted him to the Coast Guard station, where waiting paramedics treated the passengers, Bartlett said.
No additional information were released about the passengers Saturday.
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