ANKARA -- A U.S. Air Force pilot and his son, who disappeared while skiing were found alive Tuesday, surviving nine days in freezing wilderness by holing up in a cave and eating snow.


Lieutenant Colonel Michael Ronald Couillard, 37, and his youngest son, Matthew, 10, were last seen Jan. 15 on a ski lift at the northern Turkish resort of Kartalkaya, 110 kilometers from Ankara, where the officer is assigned. Hundreds of Turkish and U.S. soldiers had searched for the pair after they disappeared during an embassy excursion.


Mustafa Karslioglu, chief physician at Bolu state hospital where the pair were first taken, said both father and son were conscious but their feet were swollen from frostbite.


Guner Ozmen, acting chief of national security, said Couillard and his son spent eight days in a cave after losing their way in a blizzard. The cave was some five kilometers from the ski resort.


Then the father went in search of help, walking about a kilometer until he found an unheated cottage in a state-forestry camp. After a day in the cottage, forest workers found the pilot, who then led rescuers to his son, Ozmen added.


Complicating the drama was a claim, almost immediately discounted by authorities, that the pair had been kidnapped by a previously unknown group, the Lebanon Freedom Fighters.