She Was Only Seven When She Survived A Plane Crash That Took The Lives Of Her Family Members
In 2015, a 7-year-old girl named Sailor Gutzler was the sole survivor of a small plane crash in western Kentucky that killed four of her family members. She used skills that she learned from her father to make it to safety.
After her family’s Piper twin-engine aircraft landed upside down in a wooded area in Lyon County, Sailor was the only one to emerge from the wreckage. Her parents, sister, and cousin were dead.
The strong-willed girl lit a stick from the burning wing of the plane and walked with bloody wounds and broken bones through the cold, dark woods. She trekked three-quarters of a mile before she reached a house and knocked on the door for help.
Her 48-year-old father, Marty Gutzler, was flying the aircraft in bad weather when he made a distress call at 5:55 p.m. CT on January 2, 2015. He told air traffic control that the plane was experiencing engine issues.
The Gutzler family and a 14-year-old cousin were returning from a Christmas vacation in Key West, Florida, and were on their way back to their home near Mount Vernon in southern Illinois when the tragedy occurred. Federal officials investigated the crash site to determine what caused the flight to fail.
The other passengers were Gutzler’s 46-year-old wife, Kimberly; their 9-year-old daughter, Piper; and 14-year-old cousin, Sierra Wilder.
Gutzler had been flying since he was 16 years old. He had logged a total of about 4,000 hours and was a flight instructor. He had made the same trip from Florida to Illinois many times.
The family owned Gutzler’s Furniture, which was opened by Gutzler’s father more than 50 years ago in their hometown of Nashville, Illinois.
Forty minutes after air traffic control last heard from Gutzler, a 71-year-old resident named Larry Wilkins contacted the police, saying that he had found a girl who claimed she had been in a plane crash and that her parents were dead.
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According to Wilkins, the girl had shown up on his doorstep barefoot, wearing just one sock and summer clothing, with the temperature at night below 40 degrees.
When police arrived, Sailor was shaken up and suffered some broken bones. She told the police that she had tried to wake up her family before seeking help. Sailor was treated at Lourdes Hospital in Paducah, Kentucky.
On December 22, 2016, Sailor was legally adopted by her older half-sister, Kasie Dlubala, and her sister’s husband, Daniel.
The couple had been caring for Sailor since the fatal plane crash. Sailor lives with them and their biological daughter.
“She literally fell out of the sky into a dark hole and didn’t have anybody but her own will to live and get help for her family. Absolutely amazing,” said Lieutenant Brent White of the Kentucky State Police.
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