Fifty-three years after a private jet carrying five men disappeared on a snowy night in Vermont, experts believe they have found the wreckage in Lake Champlain. The corporate jet vanished shortly after departing from Burlington airport en route to Providence, Rhode Island, on January 27, 1971. Among those on board were two crew members and three employees from Cousins Properties, a Georgia development company working on a project in Burlington.
Initial searches for the 10-seat Jet Commander yielded no results, and the lake froze over just four days after the plane’s disappearance. Despite at least 17 subsequent searches, it wasn’t until last month that underwater searcher Garry Kozak and his team, using a remotely operated vehicle, discovered wreckage matching the jet’s custom paint scheme near Juniper Island. Sonar images revealed the wreckage in 200 feet (60 meters) of water.
“With all those pieces of evidence, we’re 99% absolutely sure,” Kozak said on Monday.
The discovery brings a sense of closure to the victims’ families, answering long-standing questions about the fate of their loved ones. “To have this found now … it’s a peaceful feeling, at the same time it’s a very sad feeling,” said Barbara Nikitas, niece of pilot George Nikita. “We know what happened. We’ve seen a couple of photos. We’re struggling with that now.”
Frank Wilder, whose father was a passenger on the plane, expressed mixed emotions. “Spending 53 years not knowing if the plane was in the lake or maybe on a mountainside around there somewhere was distressing,” he said. “I’m relieved that I know where the plane is now, but unfortunately, it’s opening other questions.”
After the ice melted in the spring of 1971, some debris from the plane was found on Shelburne Point. However, an underwater search in May of that year failed to locate the wreckage. Interest in finding the plane resurfaced in 2014 following the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines flight, though that search also proved unsuccessful.
Barbara Nikitas, along with her cousin Kristina Nikita Coffey, spearheaded recent search efforts and reconnected with other victims’ relatives. Charles Williams, whose father was an employee of Cousins Properties on the plane, praised Kozak’s dedication. Kozak was inspired to continue searching after reviewing sonar surveys from the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum and Middlebury College, which revealed anomalies on the lake floor.
The team initially found a military aircraft, but a subsequent search last winter uncovered another anomaly, which they now believe to be the jet wreckage.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is investigating to confirm the plane’s identity. Salvage operations, which are costly, are not typically conducted by the NTSB, leaving the decision of whether to recover the wreckage to the victims’ families.
The families plan to hold a memorial now that the plane’s location has been identified.