A 7-year-old girl was the sole survivor of a plane crash that killed four of her family members in Kentucky, CNN reported.
The child, her parents, sister and cousin took off from Florida on Friday morning and were headed for their native Illinois when the dual-engine aircraft suffered malfunctions and the pilot announced he would have to land in Kentucky.
But air traffic controllers "lost contact with [the] Piper PA-34 aircraft...shortly after the pilot reported engine problems and (said) that he was diverting to the Kentucky Dam Sate (Park) Airport," Kathleen Bergen, spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, told CNN.
The plane was unable to reach the airport in time and crashed in a wooded area of Lyon County, killing the 7-year-old's mother, father, sister and cousin.
State troopers were alerted to the crash after the unidentified survivor managed to climb out of the upside down aircraft and walk about a mile, at night, to the nearest home.
She knocked on the door of a local homeowner who took her in and called 911. Authorities took her to a nearby hospital in Paducah to be treated for non-life-threatening injuries, state police said.
"When I saw...what appeared to be a 7-year-old child that had walked through this dense forest and through some really rough terrain and some awfully poor conditions tonight and survived this," State Police Lieutenant Brent White told CNN. "It's just really a miracle."
Emergency responders arrived at the scene of the wreckage and tried to rescue her family, but it was too late.
The victims have been identified as the girl's parents, 48-year-old Marty Gutzler and 46-year-old Kimberly Gutzler, her 9-year-old sister Piper Gutzler and her 14-year-old cousin Sierra Wilder.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash, CNN reported. It was not immediately clear where the girl will stay.
"She's a terribly brave little girl, I'll tell you that," Larry Wilkins, who rescued the girl when she knocked on his door, told CNN. "I can't imagine a 7-year-old doing that."
