St. Petersburg Fire Rescue fished a crashed small plane’s four occupants and a small dog out of the water on Tuesday, a day ahead of Hurricane Milton making landfall on Florida’s west coast. With a climbing death toll, the hurricane proved as devastating as feared by meteorologists. The urgent warnings to evacuate from public officials were thankfully heeded by Floridians, including this group of people with access to a single-engine plane.
Air traffic control at Albert Whitted Airport explained to the U.S. Coast Guard that a plane took off, made a turn and disappeared from radar. The controller correctly assumed that the aircraft had crashed. It was later discovered that the crashed plane suffered an engine failure. A Coast Guard plane arrived within five minutes and flew in a circle above the survivors. The activity was enough to attract a good samaritan on a dinghy to assist before rescue personnel on the water got there.
It was clear that Floridians were attempting to escape Milton’s path by any means necessary. Almost 1,500 gas stations ran out of fuel as drivers packed onto the state’s highways. Airlines were accused of price gauging as major carriers announced that price caps were implemented. Eventually, airports were forced to shut down operations as conditions worsened and NOAA’s Hurricane Hunter planes became the only aircraft in the turbulent skies.