Kudos to this guy for keeping it together and putting it into the trees slow, straight, and level rather than trying to turn back and ending up in a stall/spin. That's gotta be a tough thing to force yourself to do when you're actually under the gun--which is why it pays to have thought about it a lot before it ever happens.

Another case where, it appears, a PLB or SPOT might have saved these guys (and their loved ones waiting at home) from a long and painful night. Glad for all involved that everything worked out as well as it did.

180 Cherokee, I assume.



http://trib.com/news/state-and-regional/alaskan-pilot-son-walk-away-from-yellowstone-crash/article_2fb1689e-2ce4-51b7-8027-0d152c970892.html

Wow! Glad they made it out alive!

I was just up and down that road a couple of weeks ago. I know from the air it may look pretty curvy and not landable. But I think there are plenty if good spots up to the East Gate to land if you had to. Maybe even a sand bar on the river??

That's why I like to look around and take mental notes of all these roads I've been trucking on here in MT, WY, and ID.

Doing the right thing when it seems so wrong and when the consequences of failure are so severe is really tough. Congratulations to this pilot for adhering to his training and not grasping at straws when he made his controlled descent into the trees. The loss of the plane is a small price to pay for avoiding the alternative the pilot referred to as a long dirt nap.

I agree that what he did to set it down once that decision was made, was well done, but I have to wonder if perhaps his high elevation experience was lacking. Beluga, AK, where they're from, is at 87' MSL, across the Cook Inlet from Anchorage. Cody is at 5100' MSL, and Sylvan Pass is over 8500', with the route going along the highway between some pretty high rocks over 12,000' on each side. When I moved to Laramie after learning to fly in the Anchorage area, it took me awhile to get accustomed to the nuances of coaxing the most performance out of airplanes by proper leaning, so I'm wondering if that might not have contributed to his loss of power issues. A huge amount of Alaskan flying is done in awful weather in rugged terrain, but also at relatively low elevations compared to northwest Wyoming.

I've driven that highway several times over the years, so I also think that there are a lot of pretty straight stretches of that highway which are landable, but there are some I wouldn't want to try landing on. The news clip isn't very descriptive about the location of the crash, so that's hard to judge.

But in any event, I'm certainly glad they survived with as few injuries as the media indicates.

Cary

I flew the Sylvan Pass in August, most of the highway below is pretty straight. The story said he had a total loss of power so probably little he could do other than concentrate on keeping control. And they had enough emergency supplies to get a fire going and make it through the night, so all things considered I would say well done.