Mystery of private jet that vanished on cold, snowy night in 1971 with five people on board is finally solved

A private jet that disappeared in 1971 with five passengers on board was miraculously found by an expert during a recent recovery mission.

On January 27, 1971, a plane took off from Burlington International Airport for Providence, Rhode Island on a snowy and cold night. The plane was carrying two crew members and three employees of Cousin’s Properties, an Atlanta-based development company.

The flight disappeared and George Nikita, Donald Myers, Frank Wilder, Richard Kirby Windsor and Robert Ransom Williams III were never found, despite multiple searches conducted over the past fifty years.

Garry Kozak of Goffstown, New Hampshire, has discovered what he believes is the 10-seat Jet Commander aircraft at the bottom of Lake Champlain near Juniper Island.

“You can’t find peace until you find all the pieces, and today is the day. Today is the day. And it’s done,” Kristina Coffey, the daughter of George, the plane’s pilot, said NBC5 News.

Kozak located the wreckage over Memorial Day weekend, but news of its discovery was withheld until the victims’ families were notified.

Prior to the recent discovery, pieces of debris were found, including aircraft wreckage and an oxygen tank, but the entire aircraft was never located.

Kozak said he has spent years looking for strange shapes at the bottom of Lake Champlain and analyzing previous scans of the water.

“Searching for everything lost underwater is always an interesting story,” Kozak said.

‘And the other [factor]In this particular case, it’s the families. You know, I had spoken to a few of them back in 2014 and I knew they were really hoping that the plane would be found.”

During a follow-up search in May, Kozak and his team used remotely operated vehicles and high-resolution imaging technology to find multiple pieces of debris that had never been located before.

The crew discovered a broken fuselage, or main body of a plane, in the depths of the water with matching paint that resembled the plane that disappeared all those years ago.

They also found an instrument panel, wing structure, visible remains of an engine and other telling evidence.

Kozak told NBC 5 News he is confident he has found the long-lost plane, as no other business jets have reportedly been found at the bottom of the 300-square-mile lake.

“If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks a bit like a duck, it’s probably a duck,” he said.

He named the team that helped him make the discovery: Hans Hug from Sonar Search and Recovery in Exeter, Hug’s colleague Bruce Stebbins and Tim McDonald from Marine Solutions.

After locating the missing plane, Kozak submitted all their findings to the National Transportation Safety Board and authorities for confirmation.

Although the team solved the cold case, Kozak said they wouldn’t have been able to do so if others hadn’t made breakthroughs over the years.

“There were a lot of people who contributed to make this possible,” he said. “And if one of them hadn’t contributed, this never would have happened.”

The exact location of the crashed plane will remain confidential to protect and respect the site, NBC 5 News reported.

Other family members of the passengers who had been presumed dead all these years felt a lot of closure and pain from the recent update.

Frank Wilder’s son, also Frank Wilder, said he was overcome with many emotions.

‘Right now I’m experiencing a mix of shock and disbelief. I never thought this day would happen,” Wilder said.

“I’m so relieved they found it,” he added.

George’s daughter also says she is relieved that the plane has been located.

“I’m just glad it’s still here in my life, and I’m glad my mom is still alive,” Coffey said.

“I cried because, you know, we had a lot of false alarms. Something that looks like an airplane, but isn’t an airplane. And that’s it.’

Barbara Nikita, George’s niece and goddaughter, has a similar reaction to the big update in the case.

“It’s a very strange feeling,” she said. ‘When I look at the photos, I’m torn between shock and awe and stomach ache. It’s closure. It will be closure. This will be their resting place.”

Like Kozak, both Nikita and Coffey are deeply grateful to the state police, environmental teams, conservation teams, nonprofits, historians and everyone else involved in the decades-long search.

It’s unclear what will happen to the sunken plane, as an expert close to the investigation told NBC 5 News that retrieving the plane would take a lot of time, patience and money.

The families plan to wait and see what the next steps will be now that they have gained a sense of closure.