Fifty-three years after a private plane carrying five men disappeared on a snowy Vermont night, experts believe they have found the wreckage of the long lost jet in Lake Champlain.
The corporate jet disappeared shortly after departing the Burlington airport for Providence, Rhode Island, on Jan. 27, 1971. Those aboard included two crew members and three employees of the Atlanta, Georgia, development company Cousin’s Properties, who were working on a development project in Burlington.
Initial searches for the 10-seat Jet Commander turned up no wreckage and the lake froze over four days after the plane was lost. At least 17 other searches happened, until underwater searcher Garry Kozak and a team using a remotely operated vehicle last month found wreckage of a jet with the same custom paint scheme in the lake close to where the radio control tower had last tracked the plane before it disappeared. Sonar images were taken of the wreck found in 200 feet (60 meters of water) near Juniper Island.
“With all those pieces of evidence, we’re 99% absolutely sure,” Kozak said Monday.
The discovery of the wreckage gives the families of the victims “some closure and answers a lot of the questions they had,” he said.
While relatives are grateful and relieved that the plane has been found, the discovery also opens up more questions and old wounds.
“To have this found now … it’s peaceful feeling, at the same time it’s a very sad feeling,” Barbara Nikita, niece of pilot George Nikita, said in an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday. “We know what happened. We’ve seen a couple of photos. We’re struggling I think with that now.”
Frank Wilder’s father, also Frank Wilder, was a passenger on the plane.
“Spending 53 years not knowing if the plane was in the lake or maybe on a mountainside around there…
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