A twin-engined turboprop carrying ten passengers and one pilot ditched into the Atlantic Ocean on May 12, 2026. It was hailed as a miracle, but there’s more to the story than meets the eye.
The crash
The Beechcraft King Air 300 had already had one uneventful trip that day. It left Marsh Harbour Airport just before noon and was bound for Grand Bahama International Airport in Freeport. It was a routine twenty-minute charter flight between the islands for the pilot, Ian Nixon, who had been flying for over 25 years and regularly flew the route.
He was unfamiliar with this particular aircraft but had flown on a similar, newer version. The aircraft had the same instruments but older avionics. The King Air is well known for its short-field performance and is often used for island or remote operations. The passengers were on the flight to vote on election day. Nixon, a freelance pilot, had been called up the night before by a colleague, and he agreed to pilot the island-hopping trip.
At 12:05 local time, there was ‘a bump’ like turbulence, and the navigation system went down; then all radio contact was lost. One engine failed and then the second engine followed. Nixon tried to contact Nassau Tower, Freeport and Miami to no avail. Even the passengers tried to call 911 from their own cell phones. He tried to set the systems numerous times, but things only flickered briefly before failing again. There was nowhere to land, so he had no choice but to make an emergency landing on water as a last resort…