3 boys survive plane crash, frozen night MONTEREY, Mass. (AP) =97 They had been searching the mountains and forests= =20 all morning when the missing plane was finally spotted, its nose buried in= =20 snow, a child waving nearby and an arm moving stiffly back and forth=20 through an opening in the battered fuselage. After rescuers were lowered=20 Monday from a helicopter to the site, they found a remarkable sight amid=20 the frozen carnage: Three young boys and their father had survived both the= =20 crash and 18 hours in bone-chilling cold in a remote Massachusetts state=20 forest. Ronald K. Ferris, 39, later died in Fairfield Hospital in Great=20 Barrington after he suffered a heart attack. His wife, Tayne, and another=20 child who was not immediately identified, died in the crash of the family's= =20 small plane. But three of the couple's boys =97 Ryan, 2, Jordan, 5, and Tyler, 10 =97=20 survived the ordeal and were listed in critical condition Monday night in=20 Albany Medical Center Hospital. "I'm totally amazed. They're very, very=20 tough to have made it through the night," said Richard Toman, state police= =20 civilian search and rescue administrator. "This is the stuff movies are=20 made of." New York State Police Sgt. T.J. Corrigan, who hovered in a helicopter above= =20 the crash site looking for survivors, said he saw a small child moving=20 about 40 feet away from the plane's cabin. It was not clear whether the=20 child had been thrown from the fuselage or had crawled from it. As=20 Corrigan waited for more personnel, minutes later, someone =97 possibly the= =20 father =97 put an arm out of the cabin, waving to the helicopter. When=20 rescuers on foot arrived, the father was cold and confused but talking,=20 medical workers said. "It was shock and horror at the same time, because=20 now there were people alive but the elements outside would quickly take=20 their toll," Corrigan said. "And I didn't see any gloved hands or hats, it= =20 was street clothes." The rescuers dropped to the crash site from=20 helicopters and wrapped the toddler in a thermal blanket. When they=20 searched the cabin, they found the family's luggage, CD players and clothes= =20 "all over the place," said Charles Rappazzo, an EMS worker from Colonie,= N.Y. They also found more survivors, apparently shielded by the bodies of their= =20 mother and another sibling. "It was just amazing just to see the kids on=20 the bottom of the pile that were still alive," Rappazzo said. "What=20 probably kept them alive was the fact that they were shielded ... basically= =20 that the mother that was on top of them kept them warm." Ronald Ferris,=20 who, with his wife, owned an auto dealership in Swanzey, N.H., was=20 passionate about flying. On the dealership Web site, Ferris offered=20 customers who bought his cars a free flight, saying "Ron loves to=20 fly." The family flew home from Lakeland, Fla., at about 1 p.m. Sunday. As= =20 the pilot flew north, he radioed air traffic controllers twice to change=20 his flight plan. Controllers spoke with the pilot when he radioed to report= =20 ice on the plane, and was planning to make a visual approach to Barnes=20 Airport in Westfield, according to Jim Peters, a spokesman for the Federal= =20 Aviation Administration. The last time air traffic controllers heard from= =20 the plane was about 6:50 p.m. Sunday. When the rescuers found the plane=20 just after noon Monday in Beartown State Forest, a mountainous area near=20 the Connecticut and New York state lines, the fuselage was almost intact.=20 Had the weather been warmer, the outcome might have been different,=20 Corrigan said. "I know it was a family, a mother and father and their=20 kids, and now it's a broken family. So it's sad to know it didn't have a=20 better outcome," Corrigan said. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@escape.ca Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.dbombo.net/muddyangels/ TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************