BOIS BLANC ISLAND, Mich. — A search has found a small plane that crashed into Lake Huron in Michigan 17 years ago, as well as the remains of a long-missing passenger, state police said Wednesday.
The remains were identified as H. Brooke Stauffer Jr., 56, a resident of Washington, D.C. He was a passenger on a plane that departed Mackinac Island in August 2007 for a small town in Michigan’s Lower Peninsula.
Stauffer and the pilot, his fiancée Karen Dodds, were in a Socata TB-20 Trinidad when the plane disappeared. Her remains were found two months after the crash, east of the Mackinac Bridge, but there was no sign of the plane or Stauffer.
“In October 2023, Great Lakes Search & Recovery, a private company, resumed searches at the request of family members, state police said. “In August 2024, members of the search team discovered aircraft wreckage near Bois Blanc Island.”
State police divers subsequently found skeletal remains, and Northern Michigan University’s Center for Forensic Anthropology confirmed Stauffer’s identity using dental records, authorities said.
Stauffer was director of standards and safety for the National Electrical Contractors Association.
“He was a prolific writer and the author of several technical books, numerous magazine articles, a children’s novel, and a guide to Washington, D.C.,” according to his obituary.
Dodds, 52, had her own company, Dodds Design, a graphic web design and marketing firm in Washington.