The U.S. Coast Guard called off a recovery mission at noon on Saturday for four victims of a small plane crash in Lake Michigan the day before.
The sole survivor of the Cessna plane, which took off from Gratiot Community Airport on Friday morning, was pilot Jerry Freed, 66, who was rescued by a fisherman.
Freed was released from Memorial Medical Center in Ludington, MI, on Saturday afternoon. The other passengers, all residents of Alma, a town with a population of less than 10,000, lost their lives.
Rescue workers did not recover the bodies of co-pilot Earl Davidson, 70; Alma Public Schools superintendent Don Pavlik, 60, and his wife, Irene, 56; and Dr. James Hall, 67.
The plane was en route to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., for cancer treatments for Pavlik.
Dr. Hall's wife, Ann, read a note found in her husband's medical bag to The Morning Sun newspaper, which posted it on their website.
Penned minutes before the crash, the note, written to "all," said, "We love you. We lost power over the middle [of] Lake Michigan and [are] turning back. We are praying to God that all [will] be taken care of."
Heavy rain forced the Coast Guard to suspend a massive search-and-rescue mission that began Friday and resumed on Saturday morning.