Missing Plane and Human Remains Found in Lake Huron 17 Years After Aircraft Vanished

Mar. 15, 2025

A stock image of a SOCATA TB-20 Trinidad aircraft.Photo:aviation-images.com/Universal Images Group via Getty

aviation-images.com/Universal Images Group via Getty

Seventeen years after a small passenger plane crashed into Michigan’s Lake Huron, the remains of one of the passengers have been found.

According to MSP, the crash occurred in August 2007, when Stauffer and and the pilot — his fiancée, Karen Dodds, 52 — were taking a SOCATA TB-20 Trinidad airplane from Mackinac Island to Bad Axe, near Michigan’s southern peninsula, when the aircraft crashed into Lake Huron.

A stock image of Mackinac Island in Michigan.Getty

Getty

A “large-scale” search for the plane and passengers took place soon after the crash, and Dodds' remains were found on Oct. 8, 2007, in the Straits of Mackinac, east of the Mackinac Bridge.

“Those remains were recovered and later identified as the missing pilot,” MSP told PEOPLE. “The search for the passenger and the plane wreckage continued and eventually was called off without finding the wreckage.”

In October 2023, 16 years after the crash, family members of the victims requested that the private organization Great Lakes Search and Recovery re-open the investigation, MSP added. By August, the search team had discovered plane wreckage near Bois Blanc Island and reported it to police.

After the organization reported the wreckage to police, the MSP’s Marine Services Team collected evidence from the crash site that indicated it was the same plane from the 2007 crash.

“As state police divers searched the wreckage, a set of skeletal remains was found at the crash site. The remains were provided to the Center for Forensic Anthropology at Northern Michigan University for identification,” MSP wrote. “Through dental records they were positively identified as being the skeletal remains of the 56-year-old passenger.”

Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, where the couple departed from on their 2007 flight.Getty

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Dodds was a business owner who ran a web design and marketing company in D.C., according to the AP.

Police added in their statement that the search has helped “bring closure” to both victims' family members.

source: people.com