Plane crash survivor’s mom: Dad’s embrace shielded daughter

BEAVER ISLAND, Mich. (AP) — The mother of an 11-year-old girl who was the sole survivor of a plane crash on Michigan’s Beaver Island that killed her father and three others says she believes her husband protected her from more serious injuries by holding her tightly as the plane went down. Christina Perdue says Mike Perdue, of Gaylord, was holding Laney tightly when the twin-engine commuter plane crashed Saturday on the Lake Michigan island. She says in an interview broadcast Tuesday on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that “in my heart I know that protected her” as the plane crashed. She says Laney remains hospitalized with five broken bones.