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'Hard to find, hard to reach': Rescuers said getting to pilot in marsh was challenging

Here's what happened in the 39 minutes between rescuers arriving at the airport and reaching the crashed plane and pilot in St. Augustine

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A tough rescue - First responders had a challenging time seeing and getting to a pilot whose plane crashed at the airport in St. Augustine in March.

On March 2nd, Marianne Fox’s plane overflew the runway by about 1,500 feet and landed upside down in the neighboring marsh, according to the Northeast Florida Regional Airport Director Edward Wuellner and a preliminary reporter from the NTSB.

Credit: Contributed
Marianne Fox

Jeremy Robshaw with the St. Johns County Fire Rescue, said within minutes of getting the call, a fire rescue crew, which has a fire station 1.3 miles away, arrived at the airport. It was 5:05 p.m. However rescuers did not reach her until 5:44 p.m., he said. 

So what happened in that 39 minutes in between?

Credit: Northeast Florida Regional Airport
Plane upside down in the marsh

Robshaw said first responders could not see the plane in the marsh from the ground and neither could staff in the control tower. He said the tall grass in the marsh hindered their view.

Fox’s fiancé, Jim Bourke, who was piloting a different plane in the same spot, told First Coast News, "I looked for her form the air, and I didn’t know where she was. I didn’t see her. I didn’t know where in the marsh she was."

Once the plane was spotted, getting to it was tricky as well.

Robshaw said parts of the marsh were too shallow for even airboats and too muddy to travel by foot.

Credit: Northeast Florida Regional Airport
Airboat with rescue crew aboard

Once they found a creek deep enough, the airboat got to the plane. It was 5:44 p.m. 

Robshaw said Fox was cut out of the plane in four minutes.

Her fiancé says she drowned.

The fire station at the airport was not staffed at the time of the crash. It technically does not have to be unless there is a commercial flight scheduled. Wuellner said talks are in the works again about having St. Johns County staff that fire station fulltime.

Meanwhile both the airport and fire rescue are waiting for the full NTSB report.

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