Teenage Girl Found at Sea: Rescue Plane Saves 16 y.o. Solo Sailor

Searchers flying over the Indian Ocean made contact early this morning with the teenage American girl feared lost at sea attempting a solo sail around the world in a 40-foot boat. Abby Sunderland, miraculously, was alive and well. They spotted the 16-year-old's boat in an upright position in a remote and treacherous section of the ocean off Madagascar and spoke to her by radio. The intrepid young sailor told them she was inside her disabled boat and doing fine, with a space heater and enough food to last her at least two weeks. Family spokesman William Bennett, speaking outside the family's Thousand Oaks, Cal., home, said the mast had broken off the sailboat, the "Wild Eyes."

A 16-year-old girl trying to sail solo around the world who was missing in the Indian Ocean some 2,000 miles east of Madagascar has been found by a search plane and is in good condition, her parents said on Friday. The girl, Abby Sunderland of Thousand Oaks, Calif., departed alone Jan. 23 in her sailboat Wild Eyes. On Thursday, she lost satellite phone contact with her family and set off emergency beacons, triggering a rescue effort by United States, Australian and French authorities. Ms. Sunderland was trying to break the record for the youngest sailor to circumnavigate the globe, a title held briefly by her older brother Zac, who completed his sail last year at 17. “We have just heard from the Australian Search and Rescue. The plane arrived on the scene moments ago. Wild Eyes is upright but her rigging is down. The weather conditions are abating. Radio communication was made and Abby reports that she is fine,” Ms. Sunderland’s parents reported on her blog.