You probably heard about the plane crash in Northwest Montana last week where five people were assumed to have perished; then two days later two victims walked out of the forest, injured but alive. The story got big play in newspapers and made last Friday’s Good Morning America and Today show coverage.
A few media outlets even reported that one of the victims of this crash was a well-known railfan. I think you would like to know a little about him.
Ken Good, 58, was a radio technician for the US Forest Service Flathead National Forest, based in Kalispell, MT. He died in the crash near Essex, Montana as he and other USFS employees headed to the Bob Marshall Wilderness to repair radio repeaters and conduct a vegetation survey. They were in a chartered Cessna 206 and it appears they were “scud running”–flying under the clouds in rapidly-deteriorating weather.
The plane was declared overdue Monday afternoon; the next day as weather lifted, wreckage was spotted above the timberline and the first rescue personnel on the scene reported no survivors among the five souls on board. The debris was scattered over 50 feet of ridgeline and there had been an intense fire.
Wednesday, as sheriff’s coroner personnel were inserted to the crash scene by helicopter, a forest service ground crew drove up US2 looking for a better helicopter landing area. Along a remote section of the highway next to the wilderness area (between Stanton Creek and Paola) they came upon two very haggard lookihg people in Forest Service uniforms, who said they had walked out of the mountains after their plane crashed. Two of the USFS people who had been assumed dead were found; injured but alive. One has already been released from the hospital and the second, who made the 29-hour hike with a broken back, is recovering in a Seattle hospital.
Unfortunately, Ken was not one of them. But it was a miracle for two Montana families who were already making funeral arrangements.
Ken Goo