A pilot and two children were rescued hours after a small plane crashed into frigid waters in a miraculous survival story. Authorities reported that the trio endured nearly 12 hours in the icy lake, clinging to a section of the wreckage until help arrived in Alaska.

Terry Godes, one of a dozen volunteer pilots who joined a search in Alaska for a missing pilot and two children after seeing a Facebook post asking for help, says it "kind of broke" his heart when he saw wreckage partially submerged in a lake.

A volunteer pilot found the three on Monday morning after they had been missing all night, the authorities said. They were taken to a hospital.