Watch overjoyed boaters run to rescue helicopter after being stranded 2 days in Alaska

Three boaters were stranded in an Alaska bay for two days with no way to communicate.

When rescuers finally came for them, they were overwhelmed with joy, video shows.

The boaters planned to travel from Chevak to Newtok on Wednesday, July 27, but they never made it, the U.S. Coast Guard said. They were reported missing with no way of contacting them.

“The boaters were reported to not have emergency communication equipment on board,” the Coast Guard said in a news release.

The Coast Guard and Alaska State Troopers rushed to search for the men. They were spotted on a patch of shore near Hazen Bay, officials said.

“The Air Station Kodiak aircrew located the boaters who were waving their arms on shore of Hazen Bay Friday evening,” the Coast Guard said.

Video of the rescue shows the men waving their arms and a flag in the air. Once they realized they were getting rescued, they jumped into the air and sprinted toward the helicopter.

“This was a great outcome for a search in such challenging visual search conditions,” Lt. Cmdr. Lars Anderson, Air Station Kodiak pilot, said in the news release. “But thankfully our sensor operators are highly skilled and were able to spot the boaters quite quickly due to the fire they had built.”

This story was originally published August 4, 2022 at 10:32 AM with the headline "Watch overjoyed boaters run to rescue helicopter after being stranded 2 days in Alaska."