Two people have been killed after a private airplane crashed into the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday night.
A third person, thought to have also been on the flight, is still missing, police said.
Authorities started searching for the missing passengers after people on a boat trip discovered the body of a woman floating around 2.5miles west of Venice, Florida.
Officials involved in a Federal Aviation Administration inquiry at the Venice Municipal Airport found an overdue single-engine Piper Cherokee had not returned to its origin airport in St Petersburg, Florida.
Divers from the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office located the wreckage of the rented airplane around 2 p.m. about a third of a mile offshore, directly west of the Venice airport, city of Venice spokesperson Lorraine Anderson said in a statement.
Rescuers found a deceased girl in the plane's passenger area.
A third person, believed to be a male who was the pilot or a passenger, remained missing Sunday, Anderson said.
The county sheriff's office, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Sarasota Police Department, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the District 12 Medical Examiner's Office and the National Transportation Safety Board were involved in the investigation, Anderson said.
Last week, the lucky survivor of a horror plane crash had to hike six miles to find a phone signal before being able to call for help.
In the Mountain Green area of Morgan County, Utah, a pilot suddenly found himself forced to land... but "miraculously walked away".
A two-hour and six-mile trek took the pilot within range of a cell tower, where he was able to alert authorities to his plight.
Officials said the pilot "made a skilled forced landing" when the twin-tailed prop plane was crash landed on Sunday, November 17.
The Mountain Green Fire Protection District said: "An airplane crashed in the canyon this afternoon, near Durst Mountain several miles up Cottonwood Canyon Road. Mountain Green Fire and Morgan Fire&EMS units responded along with Morgan Sheriff’s Deputies."
It continued: "The pilot miraculously walked away from the crash, then hiked about 6 miles to get cell service to call 911. Mountain Green firefighters arrived, assessed the wreckage, disabled the batteries, and addressed the fuel leak. Access to the site was difficult, on ATV roads most of the way."
The plane was downed in near Cottonwood Canyon Road; described as an "unpaved" area that travels through the scenic Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah and Arizona.
Mountain Green Fire Chief Brian Brendel told KSL News that situations like these usually come with some difficulty locating the aircraft or pilot.
