11-year-old girl, sole survivor in Michigan’s Beaver Island plane crash.
An 11-year-old girl was the sole survivor of a plane crash on an island in Lake Michigan on Saturday that killed four people, including her father, authorities said.
The twin-engine Britten-Norman commuter plane took off from Charlevoix on Michigan’s lower peninsula and sank around 1:30 p.m. at an airport on Beaver Island, authorities said.
A Coast Guard helicopter took the seriously injured girl and a man to a hospital in Petoskey and the adult was later pronounced dead.
The four fatalities were identified Sunday by Charlevoix County Sheriff’s Office Lt. William Church as Kate Leese and Adam Kendall of Beaver Island, and Mike Perdue of Gaylord.
Perdue’s daughter is the surviving victim and the identity of the pilot has yet to be revealed.
Christina Perdue, Perdue’s husband, told ABC News in a statement that the father protected his daughter, Laney, as the plane sank.
“We are heartbroken over the loss of my husband, a father, a brother, a son and a friend,” the mother and wife told the media.
“He gave the best bear hugs, and I think he grabbed our daughter and protected her,”
The FAA said it would participate in an investigation led by the National Transportation Safety Board.