A three-year-old girl found alive in the wreck of a plane crash near Golden, B.C., was being called a "miracle" on Monday.

The girl, Kate Williams, was the lone survivor of a crash on Sunday that claimed the lives of her grandfather and another passenger.

Rescue crews found Kate strapped into a child's car seat inside an upside-down airplane buried in snow on the edge of an icy riverbank.

"I think the care that was taken in placing the child in there, that extra protection, is what basically, I think, saved her life," Golden RCMP Sgt. Marko Shehovac told CTV News.

"It's a sad time for the family but at the same time, a minor miracle has happened here."

Her grandfather, Allen D. Williams, was flying the plane.

"He loved to fly, it was his life," said Peter Edgar. "Al had probably more hours than most airline captains have, so I'm very, very surprised that this would happen now."

Williams, 65, the CEO and founder of an Edmonton engineering firm, was in B.C. for a business retreat with Steven T. Sutton, the company's chief financial officer.

They were flying back to Edmonton when Williams' Cessna 172 crashed an hour after taking off from Golden around 1 p.m. local time, killing both men.

"Allen has been a visionary and a leader in the consulting engineering industry throughout Alberta and across the country," Naseem Bashir, vice-president of A.D. Williams Engineering Inc., said in a statement.

"Steven, a trusted advisor to our firm and in our community; was an honest man who lived what he believed. Both men are treasured husbands, fathers, grandfathers, and mentors who will be greatly missed."

Hospital officials said Kate suffered non-life threatening head injuries and was reunited with her parents in the southeastern B.C. community of Golden.

She was admitted to the Alberta Children's Hospital in Calgary on Monday, for overnight observation.

Rescuers said that bad weather and nightfall hampered the search efforts.

Members of Golden's search-and-rescue team said when Kate was recovered on Sunday she was scared and cried for her teddy bear.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Maria Weisgerber and CTV Edmonton's Serena Mah