The family had been reported missing after they never returned from a sightseeing tour in a small plane on Sunday afternoon.
They were found by volunteer pilots participating in a search effort on Monday morning. Terry Godes, one of the pilots who found the family, tells that he first saw what he believed was a wreck in an ice-covered lake.
It broke my heart. But when I got closer and lower, I could see that there were three people on top of the wing, he says.
Neither the father nor the girls were dressed to spend a night outdoors in minus degrees.
The state of Alaska largely consists of sparsely populated areas without roads, which means that many communities rely on small planes to get around. The family was rescued by the National Guard and taken to hospital. None of them are critically injured.
The two girls were dry, but their father had ended up in the water and was suffering from hypothermia. Brendon Holbrook, commander of Alaska's air regiment, says that the rescue effort had the best possible outcome.
They were lucky, because according to what I've heard, the plane's rear section was frozen into the ice. If the ice hadn't frozen again, the plane would have sunk.
