Plane Missing For 53 Years Just Found in Popular New England Lake

Finally, a 53-year mystery has been solved.

George Nikita left his four-year-old daughter, Kristina Nikita Coffey, at home 53 years ago, not knowing it was the last time he would see her.

He and four others boarded a plane on a snowy night in January 27, 1971, in Burlington, Vermont. The plan was to fly from Burlington to Providence, Rhode Island, but the group never made it, according to a CNN News article.

The mystery began. Where did the plane go?

The 1971 takeoff was normal. However, there was no communication afterwards. No mayday. No sign of the disaster that was about to hit.

And just like that, the plane went missing.

“I knew it,” said Kristina Nikita Coffey, when she saw pictures and videos of a plane at the bottom of Lake Champlain in Vermont. “I’ve looked at that picture of the plane my whole entire life.”

And she was right. It was her father's plane.

Back when the plane first went missing, Lake Champlain was freezing. Heck, it was mostly frozen.

Because of the cold water temperatures, it was easy for searchers to miss the plane, which had sunk 200 feet down to the bottom of New England's largest lake.

But why now? How, after 53 years, is the plane JUST now being found?

The family of George Nikita has Garry Kozak to thank. He's the underwater searcher who found the jet.

“I’ve always been challenged by finding stuff underwater, so that was the personal satisfaction for me to solve something that everybody else had sort of forgotten,” Kozak told CNN. “Secondly, for the family, because I had spoken with some of the family members back in 2014 when one of the searches was being put together.”

While this news is devastating, the family is now able to have closure, something they have been without for 53 years.