http://nypost.com/2015/01/02/little-girl-survives-deadly-plane-crash-in-kentucky/
Brave 7-year-old survives plane crash that killed her parents
She trekked nearly a mile across creeks and ditches, navigating blackberry briars and fallen trees, a slight 7-year-old in summer clothes fighting the cold Kentucky night, somehow stumbling to safety from the twisted wreckage of a plane crash that killed her entire family.Larry Wilkins barely heard the tiny knock Friday evening at the door of his home in Kuttawa, in southwestern Kentucky.
He opened it to find Sailor Gutzler, disoriented and shivering, her wrist broken, with a “bloody nose, bloody arms, bloody legs, one sock, no shoes, crying,” the 71-year-old said.
“She told me that her mom and dad were dead, and she had been in a plane crash and the plane was upside down.
“She asked if she could stay here,” Wilkins said.
He brought Sailor inside, got a wash cloth to clean away the dirt and debris on her trembling face, and called 911.
The little girl’s miraculous emergence from the rugged woods came about 30 minutes after a Piper PA-34-200T reported engine trouble over western Kentucky, and lost contact with air traffic controllers just before 6 p.m., authorities said.
The pilot told air-traffic controllers he was “diverting to the Kentucky Dam State (Park) Airport,” Federal Aviation Administration spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen told CNN.
But the plane never made it, crashing less than 10 miles from the airport and about 30 miles east of Paducah, Ky.
The 911 call relaying the sole survivor’s incredible tale triggered a massive search. Would-be rescuers located the plane, and four bodies, near Buckberry Trail in Lyon County, Kentucky State Police said.
Marty Gutzler, 48; his wife Kim Gutzler, 46; their 9-year-old daughter, Piper; and a 14-year-old cousin, Sierra Wilder, all of Nashville, Ill., were killed.
When Sailor couldn’t rouse her family from the wreckage, she grabbed a stick and touched it to still-burning wing, creating a torch to light her path, her family said.
It was likely a survival skill the second-grader learned from her beloved dad, relatives told NBC News.
Holding the torch with her good arm, she began to march away from the devastation. She somehow pointed herself in the right direction — possibly guided by street lights twinkling through the trees — an instinct that saved her life.
“Any other direction could have ended badly with the cold weather,” Wade White, the top local official in Lyon County, told CNN, noting that Wilkins’ cabin is one of only three homes in the area occupied during winter.
But to make it there, Sailor still had to traverse two embankments, a hill and a creek bed in sub-40 degree temperatures.
The feat boggled the minds of locals.
“She literally fell out of the sky into a dark hole and didn’t have anybody but her own will to live and get help for her family,” said Kentucky State Police Sgt. Brent White. “Absolutely amazing.”
“When I saw … a 7-year-old child had walked through this dense forest and through some really tough terrain and some awfully poor conditions tonight and survived this — it’s just a miracle,” the trooper said.
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“That area is very rough and hilly, very heavily forested with mature
trees,” said Rev. Dean Weber of Chestnut Oak United Methodist Church in
Kuttawa.
A
7-year-old girl, the lone survivor of the crash, walked approximately
three quarters of a mile to the house of Larry Wilkins in Kuttawa, Ky.Photo: AP
“She’s a terribly brave little girl, I’ll tell you that,” Wilkins told CNN.
Sailor was brought to Lourdes Hospital in Paducah, Ky., and released early Saturday.
She and her family flew frequently, said a family friend.
“It just hurts tremendously,” she told The Post. “You could not have asked for a better family.”
Marty and Kim Gutzler’s Facebook pages brim with photos of the happy family at Marty Gutzler’s 48th birthday party in November, and dressed up for a New Year’s dinner at a Key West resort.
Several shots are of the girls, snuggled in the back of a small aircraft, holding a basketball, dressed up for a community parade and their first day of school.
Kim Gutzler cheered Marty, an experienced pilot and flight instructor who had been flying since he was 16, as “the most fun loving husband & father ever!”
Marty Gutzler and his father owned a furniture store in their Illinois town, and his grandfather owned a bakery before that. The family spent New Year’s Eve in Florida with one of Kim Gutzler’s older children, and had flown to the Sunshine State “many times,” a relative told NBC News.
Their plane had taken off from Tallahassee Regional Airport, and was bound for Mount Vernon, Ill.
The National Transportation Safety Board is expected to handle the investigation into the crash.
The tragedy rocked Nashville.
“The family is definitely one of the pillars of the community. They’ve been here forever,” said Rev. Matthew Wietfeldt of Trinity Lutheran Church. “They’re kind and gracious, always looking out for other people.”
“We’re all going to rally around Sailor,” he said.
An aunt of Sierra Wilder, the teenage cousin who had joined the Gutzlers for the holiday, expressed her shock in a Facebook post.
“I still can’t even believe this is happening, I will always miss you and love you very much Sierra Wilder. You are gone WAY too soon and I will never forget you!” Kayla Robinett wrote.
Marty Gutzler frequently brought his youngest daughter into the family store.
“She was so attached to her dad,” said employee Troy Dunbar. “She was never out of his sight.”
Kent Plotner, an attorney for the Gutzler family, said,“Please pray for us, especially Sailor Gutzler.”
With Post Wire Services.
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