Hero pilot recounts crash landing in Atlantic Ocean
Pilot describes the small plane’s descent into the Atlantic Ocean: “My first thought was ‘We are not dead'” 02:12
Pilot saves the lives of 10 passengers in a small plane after colliding He told CBS News about 50 nautical miles off Florida’s east coast that he lost both engines, all communications and avionics before the crash.
“I actually lost my navigation and all my radios; I’ve been flying for 25 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Ian Nixon, a 43-year-old Bahamian pilot and father of three who returned to Nassau after the ordeal. “I did the best I could. There were a lot of things going on on the plane; I was just trying to keep it under control.”
He said the Bahamian government arranged transportation home after he was treated for minor injuries at Holmes Regional Medical Center in Melbourne, Florida.
The pilot said he tried to radio for help when he noticed problems with the Beechcraft King Air 300: first the loss of one engine, then the second.
“I couldn’t reach anyone on the radio for a while. I tried to call Freeport. [Bahamas]; “I tried calling Miami radio,” he said. “I don’t know if they can hear me, but I didn’t get an answer.”
All 11 people on board were rescued by the 920th Rescue Wing, an elite U.S. Air Force unit specially trained to conduct search and rescue efforts, before three of them were taken to a hospital in Florida with minor injuries. Nixon and the passengers floated on a life raft for hours, not knowing whether their beacons were deployed as designed at the time of the crash, and therefore unaware whether anyone was even looking for them.
“We were in the water alone, there was no one around,” passenger Olympia Outten told CBS News. “I said, ‘Oh my God! I’m praying for someone to find us, for someone to see us, for someone to see us!'”
“‘There’s a plane coming in the next 10 minutes,'” Nixon recalls saying as he battled rough weather on his life raft. Then one of the passengers said, ‘Wait, did I hear something?’ he said.
A few minutes later, a U.S. Air Force plane spotted them, Nixon said.
This photo provided by the U.S. Air Force was taken Tuesday, May 12, 2026, in Melbourne, Fla. It shows ongoing rescue operations for the survivors of a civilian plane that was shot down off the coast of China. / Credit: US Air Force/DVIDS via AP
Nixon, who has been a pilot since he was 18, said the chartered plane left Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas’ Abaco Islands on Tuesday morning and headed for Freeport on Grand Bahama.
The flight was only supposed to last 20 minutes, but after losing both engines and avionics, Nixon was forced to fly as far as he could and then land on the water.
“When I got into the water, my first thought was: ‘We’re not dead.’ That’s one of the things I remember. “We are not dead, let’s get off,” he said.
Outten, who is recovering in a Florida hospital, said he wasn’t sure if he and his passengers, including his nephew, would survive.
“But thank God we made it,” Outten said with tears in his eyes.
Nixon reflected on the Air Force’s aftermath of the crash, which he called “pretty miraculous.”
“Just have faith, keep praying, and care for each other; always tell your family you love them,” he said.
The Bahamas Aircraft Accident Investigation Authority said in a statement that it would not conduct an investigation because the incident occurred outside territorial waters, but that it had informed the relevant authorities.
“At this stage, AAIA will not speculate on the cause of the incident,” the agency added. “Such matters, once determined, will fall within the scope of a formal investigation conducted by the appropriate investigative authority.”
