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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Richard Luscombe in Miami

Florida crew recounts ‘miraculous’ Atlantic plane rescue with fuel low

A two-photo collage of rescue efforts, the left one showing a helicopter above people in water and the right one showing two orange rescue boats and one yellow one in water
A US air force members conduct rescue operations for survivors of a downed civilian aircraft off the coast of Melbourne, Florida, on Tuesday. Photograph: Gwendolyn Kurzen

A military rescue crew in Florida has spoken of the “pretty miraculous” survival of all 11 people it saved from a plane crash in the Atlantic Ocean, and its own scramble to safety with five minutes of fuel left.

Members of the 920th rescue wing, based at Patrick Space Force base, not far from Cape Canaveral, raced on Tuesday to reach the passengers and crew in choppy seas. They had emerged from a small Beechcraft twin-propeller aircraft that ditched into the water about 80 miles east of Melbourne on Florida’s east coast.

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