A missing plane and human remains from a 2007 crash have been recovered from Michigan’s Lake Huron, state police said Wednesday.
The small plane crashed in the lake 17 years ago as pilot Karen Dodds, 52, and fiancé H. Brooke Stauffer Jr., 56, were flying from Mackinac Island to the Lower Peninsula in August 2007.
At some point during that flight, their Socata TB-20 Trinidad disappeared.
Dodds’ remains were found two months later near the Mackinac Bridge but there had been no trace of Stauffer or the aircraft for years.
“In October 2023, Great Lakes Search & Recovery, a private company, resumed the search efforts at the request of family members,” state police said. “In August of 2024, members of the search team discovered plane wreckage near Bois Blanc Island.”
Skeletal remains were found shortly thereafter, and dental records were used by the Center for Forensic Anthropology at Northern Michigan University to confirm Stauffer’s identity.
The two lived in Washington, D.C. prior to their deaths.