Pilot survives emergency landing off Boca Raton beach
The hosts of “Fox & Friends” examined striking video showing 23-year-old pilot Faith Tenkley surviving an emergency water landing off Boca Raton, Florida, on August 22. Tenkley managed to steer her single-engine plane away from beachgoers and paddleboarders before swimming to shore unharmed, drawing praise from local officials for her calm, decisive and professional response.
The U.S. Coast Guard is assisting in the search for a small plane carrying four members of a Florida family that Bahamian authorities believe may have “crash-landed” in the ocean after taking off from Great Harbour Cay.
Family members identified those on board as pilot Mario Lamar, 80, his wife, Lili, 79, and two of their grandchildren, Sofia Sosa, 28, and Christian Sosa, 22, the Miami Herald reported. The group was flying in a PA-34 Piper, a five-seat aircraft, bound for Opa-locka, Florida.
“Please help,” Silvia Larrieu, the couple’s niece, told the newspaper. “I ask anybody out there, if you can help with search and rescue efforts, we would greatly appreciate it. We need to bring them home.”
Larrieu said the family was returning to Florida after spending Labor Day weekend at a vacation property in Great Harbour Cay, a place she said “they’ve spent their whole life going there.” FlightAware data showed the aircraft dropped from 10,000 feet to 3,700 feet in roughly three minutes before it disappeared from radar.
Great Harbour Cay in the Bahamas is seen from an airplane during a flight from Spain to the Caribbean. (NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Larrieu told the Miami Herald that Mario Lamar had years of experience as a pilot and always kept the aircraft in “pristine” shape.
U.S. Coast Guard Southeast said Monday it was assisting authorities in the Bahamas “following a report of a downed aircraft with four souls on board approx 15 mi off Andros Island,” with a Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplane joining the search.
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The Royal Bahamas Police Force said it received a report around 2:20 p.m. on Monday “that an aircraft may have gone down in the waters off Red Bays.”
A U.S. Coast Guard HC-144 Ocean Sentry medium-range surveillance plane from Air Station Cape Cod flies over the Atlantic Ocean in Newport, R.I., on April 4, 2026. One of these planes has joined the search for the missing aircraft off the coast of the Bahamas. (Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
It added that air traffic control “confirmed that a PA-34 Piper five-seater aircraft, bearing tail number N212ML, departed Great Harbour Cay at approximately 11:12 a.m., en route to Opa-locka, Florida.”
“Air traffic control subsequently lost contact with the aircraft approximately 13 miles west of Andros Island,” the Royal Bahamas Police Force said.
A U.S. Coast Guard aircraft is seen at Opa Locka Executive Airport in Opa Locka, Fla., on July 17, 2021. (REUTERS)
“The Bahamas Air Sea Rescue Association (BASRA) advised that the United States Coast Guard had attempted to search the area for the missing aircraft,” police also said. “However, due to inclement weather, the search was postponed until conditions became favorable.”