Speaker 1: According to the FAA, a twin engine aircraft crash into
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean just after noon, roughly fifty miles east
Speaker 1: of Vero Beach. Shortly after taking off. The pilot declared
Speaker 1: an emergency with air traffic Control. Soon after communication was lost.
Speaker 2: This is the Miracle Files.
Speaker 3: I'm Emily Jones.
Speaker 4: And I'm Holly Worthington. Sometimes the news and social media
Speaker 4: can feel pretty dark.
Speaker 5: And true crime can leave you afraid to even crawl
Speaker 5: into bed. But we're here to prove that there are
Speaker 5: more miracles than murders.
Speaker 4: In these special Miracles in the News episodes, we dig
Speaker 4: through the headlines.
Speaker 5: For you because miracles still happen and God is still good.
Speaker 4: Welcome back to Miracles in the News. Okay, Emily, I
Speaker 4: want you to imagine your boarding a plane for what
Speaker 4: should be probably one of the least memorable flights that
Speaker 4: you've taken. Like you're in the Bahamas. You're just going
Speaker 4: from island to island, across continents. It's beautiful outside. You
Speaker 4: throw your bag under the seat, maybe glance out the window,
Speaker 4: maybe think about what you're going to do when you land.
Speaker 4: Absolutely nothing about this feels dangerous or like it's a
Speaker 4: day that could turn ugly.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I already know where this is headed.
Speaker 5: And I'm supposed to fly in a few days, so
Speaker 5: maybe it's coming to visit me.
Speaker 2: Maybe not the best time, Okay, go on.
Speaker 4: Well, honestly, most flights are safe. It's one of the
Speaker 4: safest ways to travel.
Speaker 3: They say, doesn't feel like it.
Speaker 4: I know. It is a little scary, and unfortunately for
Speaker 4: eleven people that were on a flight in the Bahamas,
Speaker 4: things went very wrong and out of nowhere, the airplane
Speaker 4: starts malfunctioning. The pilot is losing critical systems, including the engines.
Speaker 1: Behavian officials say the plane took off from Marsh Harbor
Speaker 1: in the Bahamas headed to Freeport, what's typically a thirty
Speaker 1: minute flight, but shortly after taking off, the pilot declared
Speaker 1: an emergency with air traffic Control. Soon after communication was.
Speaker 6: Lost, authority say the twin engine turboprop experienced engine failure.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, terrifying.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So here's the plane's pilot, forty three year old
Speaker 4: Nicks and describing what happened.
Speaker 7: I did my best.
Speaker 3: I had a lot of stuff going on in the aircraft.
Speaker 7: I was trying to get that under control.
Speaker 4: Basically Losso on my obligation, all radios over twenty five years,
Speaker 4: and I've never seen anything like that.
Speaker 5: What would you do? I swear I have pictured this
Speaker 5: exact moment in my head every time I fly. I'm
Speaker 5: like on the edge of my seat waiting for this
Speaker 5: to happen, Like, Okayhapules is taking us down.
Speaker 4: We got to work on your faith a little bit. Girl.
Speaker 2: I know, plane is scary.
Speaker 4: I don't know why, but yeah, I think we've all
Speaker 4: had that thought a time or two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but this is.
Speaker 4: No longer just a thought for these people. At this point,
Speaker 4: both engines have completely failed. They're fifty to eighty miles offshore,
Speaker 4: so all that is beneath the plane is open ocean,
Speaker 4: which immediately changes the situation because there's nowhere to land,
Speaker 4: no airports or roads or open fields, just ocean. And
Speaker 4: Nixon has to make an onboard announcement that nobody on
Speaker 4: the plane wants to hear. They're going to have to
Speaker 4: land in the water. And I keep thinking about those
Speaker 4: final moments leading up to impact, because, unlike so many emergencies,
Speaker 4: like everybody on board understands what's about to happen. They
Speaker 4: know they're going to crash. It would be so terrifying,
Speaker 4: I know. And they also know that they're far from shore,
Speaker 4: and they know that even if they survive hitting the water,
Speaker 4: that only creates a whole other problem.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're going to be out in the middle of
Speaker 5: the ocean. Exactly terrifying.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So, Olympia Auten is with her thirty year old
Speaker 4: niece and her two young adult sons on that flight,
Speaker 4: and all she has time to do is brace for
Speaker 4: imped and this is what she says happens next.
Speaker 6: The forty eight year old was traveling on a small
Speaker 6: plane between Islands and the Bahamas Tuesday when they meet
Speaker 6: a crash landing in the ocean.
Speaker 7: And it came down that when it hit it boom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, boom boom.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: That plane hits the water hard. But despite being terrified,
Speaker 4: pilot Ian Nixon makes an incredibly difficult landing as smoothly
Speaker 4: as humanly possible, and upon landing, water starts pouring into
Speaker 4: the cabin and Ian knows he needs to act fast.
Speaker 4: Once he hit the water, I think my first sort
Speaker 4: was he didn't die, he didn't die, Let's get.
Speaker 3: Out, Let's get out.
Speaker 5: So scary, It's like right from one emergency onto the
Speaker 5: next yep.
Speaker 4: And if you can imagine the chaos in those seconds.
Speaker 4: There's impact, there's confusion, there's water rushing in, there's panic,
Speaker 4: and Olympia can't get her seatbelt unbuckled. I still was
Speaker 4: in the plane because I was trapped, she says.
Speaker 6: Her son helped her get unbuckled. Then, she says, she
Speaker 6: jumped in the water, not knowing how to swim. She
Speaker 6: flapped her feet until her family pulled her onto a
Speaker 6: life raft, where she and the other passengers watched as
Speaker 6: the plane went under.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, you can't swim, Like what else? Right?
Speaker 4: And can you imagine watching that plane just sink into
Speaker 4: the ocean.
Speaker 3: That would be shocking.
Speaker 4: Mind blowing. But somehow, against the odds, all eleven people
Speaker 4: survived the crash itself, which is definitely miracle number one, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And then on top of that, Ian Nixon is able
Speaker 4: to get everyone out of the sinking plane and onto
Speaker 4: a small life raft. But this is only the beginning,
Speaker 4: because now these people are floating out in the middle
Speaker 4: of the Atlantic on a little round yellow life raft
Speaker 4: with no communication, Oh my gosh, like.
Speaker 2: No sunes, no radios.
Speaker 4: Nothing, no, And they have no idea if anyone's even
Speaker 4: heard the pilot's distress calls. Because the radios have gone
Speaker 4: out before they even crash, and the waves are starting
Speaker 4: to rock. They're in rough water, a storm is brewing.
Speaker 4: These people have absolutely no guarantee that anyone is going
Speaker 4: to find them. And I think sometimes movies have given
Speaker 4: us unrealistic expectations about search and rescue, because we imagine
Speaker 4: somebody immediately notices a missing aircraft and helicopters magically a
Speaker 4: pair overhead. But the Atlantic Ocean is enormous and finding
Speaker 4: a small life raft in open water is incredibly difficult.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of last week's episode.
Speaker 5: We talked a lot about how hard it is to
Speaker 5: find someone in the water. Yeah, the ocean is so massive.
Speaker 5: I mean, I'm sure these people are in for a
Speaker 5: long wait. Yeah, exactly. This ordeal is far from over. Unfortunately.
Speaker 4: In fact, five hours pass and the weather keeps getting worse.
Speaker 4: The swells keep getting bigger, thunderstorms are moving in, threatening
Speaker 4: to create like the perfect conditions for a tragedy. The
Speaker 4: swells are just getting bigger and bigger, and meanwhile the
Speaker 4: raft is just drifting further and further away. From where
Speaker 4: anyone expects him to be. And this is where you
Speaker 4: really see God's hand in this story, because the nine
Speaker 4: hundred and twentieth Rescuing of the US Air Force Reserve,
Speaker 4: an elite unit, is already airborne on a training mission,
Speaker 4: so when they get the call, they are immediately redirected.
Speaker 8: What's even more incredible here is that the nine hundred
Speaker 8: and twentieth Rescuing is strained specifically in search and rescue.
Speaker 8: This is an elite unit and they just happen to
Speaker 8: be training fifteen minutes from where the crash landing took place.
Speaker 5: Wow, fifteen minutes and this massive ocean. It's crazy they
Speaker 5: were so close by, it really is. But wait, so
Speaker 5: you said that they had been out in the water
Speaker 5: for five hours. So if this Air Force crew is
Speaker 5: only fifteen minutes away, yeah, how do you explain that?
Speaker 4: Okay, so I had the same question. And geographically they're
Speaker 4: only fifteen minutes away, but that doesn't mean that they
Speaker 4: know where to look. And even though they have a
Speaker 4: general idea, they're still trying to find a small yellow raft,
Speaker 4: probably the size of a dining room table, across thousands
Speaker 4: of miles of open ocean.
Speaker 5: So nearby doesn't necessarily mean easy to find right not
Speaker 5: even hard to find.
Speaker 4: But having the air force nearby does mean that they
Speaker 4: can start searching right away.
Speaker 6: Gotcha on the water, Everyone quickly got onto a life raft.
Speaker 6: The plane sank as they waded through rough weather, not
Speaker 6: knowing if help was on the way.
Speaker 4: During all of this, Olympia is praying for rescue for hours.
Speaker 4: She's just praying and pleading with God, and even though
Speaker 4: she has no idea that anyone is looking for them,
Speaker 4: she's trying to stay calm and have faith. And then
Speaker 4: the pilot ian makes a bold and faithful declaration. He
Speaker 4: says to everyone on the raft, within ten minutes, someone
Speaker 4: will come for us. And then a few minutes later,
Speaker 4: one of the passengers says, hold on, did you hear something.
Speaker 4: Everyone looks up, and finally they see a helicopter in
Speaker 4: the distance, and then at last it stops and is
Speaker 4: hovering overhead, and everyone is just overwhelmed with gratitude.
Speaker 8: Oh, when I see the helicopter, that's when I release.
Speaker 4: I say, oh, thank you.
Speaker 7: Jesus says, we get saved.
Speaker 4: He gets saved.
Speaker 7: We get see it.
Speaker 2: I would be doing that too. I would be saying
Speaker 2: thank you Jesus.
Speaker 3: Yes, I'm sure that was just such a.
Speaker 4: Relief just to see now I know, and it's amazing
Speaker 4: that they've been found. But finding everyone is only half
Speaker 4: the battle now, because now the helicopter has to get
Speaker 4: everyone out of the water. They immediately drop extra survival
Speaker 4: equipment and rafts and begin pulling survivors out of the ocean.
Speaker 7: Once we found there's eleven, our media concern was do
Speaker 7: we have the weight in space take eleven people on board?
Speaker 3: Interesting?
Speaker 4: Yeah, And because the water is so rough, it's taking
Speaker 4: them longer than they expected. And as they're pulling people
Speaker 4: out of the water, the helicopter fuel system begins sounding
Speaker 4: an alarm. It needs to leave now.
Speaker 6: The Coastguard had five minutes left of fuel, faced with
Speaker 6: leaving passengers if they couldn't get them all.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the helicopter has already spent ninety minutes hoisting
Speaker 4: people from the water. And to be clear, what they
Speaker 4: mean by five minutes left of fuel is that they've
Speaker 4: reached what is referred to as bingo fuel, which means
Speaker 4: that if they don't leave within five minutes, they will
Speaker 4: not have enough fuel to get back to land, and
Speaker 4: not only that, but the weather is getting way worse.
Speaker 4: And again, this is an elite unit and fortunately they
Speaker 4: specialize in this type of difficult rescue, and these are
Speaker 4: heroes who are not about to give up.
Speaker 7: The crew air dropping survival kits and executing this challenging
Speaker 7: operation with limited fuel, hoisting eleven people to safety, completing
Speaker 7: the rescue with only five minutes of fuel left before
Speaker 7: needing to return to Florida.
Speaker 2: Wow, so they got everyone on board.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's truly miraculous.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they get everybody. I don't know how the helicopter
Speaker 4: did it. Sorry if you don't get that joke language,
Speaker 4: go check out our social media. But yeah, Once the
Speaker 4: last survivors hoisted onto the helicopter, they fly back to Florida,
Speaker 4: where emergency crews are waiting. Everyone from the plane crash
Speaker 4: is taken to medical facilities where they're checked out and amazingly,
Speaker 4: none of their injuries are life threatening.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: I'm sure that they will need some time to heal
Speaker 5: emotionally after such a traumatic experience, but absolutely, But I'm
Speaker 5: sure they're also all so grateful.
Speaker 4: So back on land, so grateful, and after this incredible rescue,
Speaker 4: several people acknowledge that this has to be a miracle
Speaker 4: from God. Even members of the elite units say it.
Speaker 4: So here's one of the air force pilots talking about it.
Speaker 6: I've not known anyone to survive ditching in the ocean
Speaker 6: from what I've seen.
Speaker 4: I mean, for all those people to survive is pretty miraculous.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: I mean, I don't know the stats on ditching, but
Speaker 5: there's like a lot of things in the story that
Speaker 5: had to go right, not just.
Speaker 4: That, Yeah, exactly what I thought. Yeah, So okay, Emily,
Speaker 4: here's where the story takes a really bizarre term though,
Speaker 4: you're not going to see this one coming. But after
Speaker 4: the rescue, investigators eventually began looking into why the plane
Speaker 4: crashed and who the survivors were from the plane, and
Speaker 4: they discover something shocking. Apparently one of the survivors is
Speaker 4: now accused of participating in a large drug trafficking conspiracy.
Speaker 4: What yeah, okay, seriously, And to be clear, these allegations
Speaker 4: are still part of an ongoing investigation, but according to reporting,
Speaker 4: this wasn't small scale trafficking either. Court documents alleged connections
Speaker 4: to large cocaine shipments moving through the Bahamas. Again, what
Speaker 4: do I know, Okay, stick with me here. They continue
Speaker 4: this investigation and reportedly discover something else, a bag containing
Speaker 4: approximately thirty thousand dollars in Bahamian currency.
Speaker 5: Okay, how did they find a bag if the plane
Speaker 5: sank in the ocean.
Speaker 4: Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 3: I had the same question.
Speaker 4: And according to reports, a fifty eight year old man
Speaker 4: named Jonathan Eric Gardner was found with three phones and
Speaker 4: a crossbody bag that contained the money, and the complaint
Speaker 4: said the money was labeled with the handwritten name of
Speaker 4: a Bahamian politician who was allegedly connected to a planned
Speaker 4: Bahamas bound shipment in November twenty twenty four involving nine
Speaker 4: hundred to one thousand kilograms of cocaine from Columbia.
Speaker 3: Oh you're in trouble now. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So the part about the politician was later redacted from
Speaker 4: public record because it doesn't necessarily prove the politician was
Speaker 4: guilty of anything. Okay, But now investigators start looking into
Speaker 4: that politician, other political leaders start demanding answers, questions start
Speaker 4: being asked publicly, and it looks like, beyond the innocent
Speaker 4: lives that were saved like Olympia Aughton and her family,
Speaker 4: a large drug trafficking ring may have been shut down
Speaker 4: by this plane crash.
Speaker 5: Wow, Okay, you are right. I did not see that coming.
Speaker 5: This was major plot twist, I.
Speaker 4: Know the same. When I found that out, I was
Speaker 4: like what, I was like, are we in the same story? Yeah?
Speaker 4: And I know the plane crash guys right? And I
Speaker 4: keep coming back to thought over and over again, like,
Speaker 4: if this plane doesn't crash, does any of this happen?
Speaker 3: Interesting? Okay?
Speaker 4: I think sometimes when we talk about miracles, we think
Speaker 4: of them as just like a rescue or a survival. Yeah,
Speaker 4: but as we've learned, miracles can be very nuanced.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Obviously we should be careful not to claim certainty where
Speaker 4: we don't have it.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: This is all under investigation still, but it is difficult
Speaker 4: not to look at this story and wonder if there
Speaker 4: aren't two miracles it took place. One miracle kept eleven
Speaker 4: people alive, and another miracle may have saved even more
Speaker 4: lives of the people who would have taken those tracks.
Speaker 3: Interesting.
Speaker 2: God works in mysterious ways.
Speaker 4: He does, And I am certain Olympia's prayers were heard
Speaker 4: and the prayers of the.
Speaker 3: Other passengers on that plane. Yeah, what a miracle. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so interesting.
Speaker 4: Well, thanks everyone for joining us today. Our God is
Speaker 4: a god of miracles and hopefully listening to this podcast
Speaker 4: has helped you to realize that more and more. If
Speaker 4: you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it, leave a review,
Speaker 4: and make sure you subscribe to you don't miss a
Speaker 4: single episode. Have a wonderful week. Everyone, a's eleven of us.
Speaker 4: I'm eleven hours eleve a right. Thank God for that,
Speaker 4: because that's America.
Speaker 3: That's a miracle. Amen.
Speaker 4: Thank you for joining us. If you have a miracle
Speaker 4: to share, contact us at the Miracle files dot com
Speaker 4: or find us on social media. We release new episodes
Speaker 4: each Monday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so, don't forget Miracle mondays.
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Speaker 5: video content as well.
Speaker 4: Join us next time as we discover more of God's miracles,
Speaker 4: and don't forget to look for His light in your
Speaker 4: own lives