INDIAN RIVER COUNTY, Fla. — Multiple agencies teamed up to safely locate and rescue three people after their small plane crashed Sunday night into the Atlantic Ocean.
WPTV obtained body camera footage of the moment Agent Williams, with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, pulled out the pilot of the Cessna Skyhawk.
WATCH BELOW: Border Protection agent details 'miraculous' rescue of plane crash survivors
"[The pilot] kept verbalizing his pain, and also stated several times he couldn't believe that he lived and that he thought he was going to die in this ordeal," Williams said.
Williams told WPTV that the three victims on board the plane were treading water for around an hour and a half, miles offshore of Indian River County.
"The ability for the three subjects to be able to keep their hopes up and fight for their lives, to give us time to get there, that was crucial," Williams said.
He said his team got the alert of the crashed aircraft before 9 p.m. on Sunday and were able to locate the victims in about 30 minutes, thanks in part, Williams said, from the heat signatures picked up by the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office helicopter.
"Without the aid of the helicopter," Williams said. "I don't know where the position of these three individuals would be today."
When Williams and his team arrived at the scene, he said they first found two victims.
WATCH BELOW: U.S. Customs and Border Protection release video of rescue
"They immediately noticed us and were waving to us," Williams said. "I also noticed that one of the subjects kept looking back and calling back to a third person by name."
Williams said they were calling back to the man who identified himself as the pilot.
"I could tell in the look in his face, the way his pupils looked dilated from a distance, the way he was behaving, that he was struggling to stay above water, he didn't have much more time," Williams said.
Williams said he threw a safety rope to him and pulled him up by hand. Williams added that the pilot complained about pain in his ribs.
The pilot was then transferred to the EMT for medical attention.
"They all seemed pretty healthy for the conditions," Williams said. "What they went through was, to me, a miraculous and amazing."
Williams said he's thankful the ocean conditions made the rescue effort easier.
"If this was like wintertime or preceding a storm or something, where the sea state was higher, this would have been a much more difficult operation," Williams said.
