Plane crash survivor is 'ready to close the book'

Jodee Hogg tells Diane Sawyer about her survival ordeal.

In her first media interview, Jodee Hogg told ABC's "Good Morning America" on Wednesday about her survival ordeal after a plane crash in the Great Bear Wilderness last week.

"It was a crash so devastating authorities said no one could ever survive," Diane Sawyer said in introducing the segment, which featured Hogg, 23, and her twin sister, Kyna, in an interview from Billings.

Even after crash investigators announced no one had survived, Kyna Hogg said she knew her sister had indeed lived through the crash.

"I knew it. I knew she was still alive," Kyna Hogg said. She said she shared that intuition with her mother, but then "I kind of kept it to myself once we got to Kalispell."

Jodee Hogg shared her recollection of the Sept. 20 crash.

"Well, it was very similar to, like, a car wreck," she said. "There was a loud noise and I think I must have had my eyes closed for most of it because I don't remember seeing any visual. I don't have any visual memories. I just have memories of the fire and trying to get my seat belt undone.

"All in all, the crash was actually pretty fast," she added. "I just remember the impact, there was a loud noise, there was a fire, and I was trying to get my seat belt undone."

Hogg, Matt Ramige and Ken Good managed to escape the plane. Good had been pushed from the burning plane by pilot Jim Long. Hogg pulled Ramige from the wreckage.

Long, 60, then succumbed to the fire. The other passenger, Davita Bryant, 32, apparently died on impact.

Hogg, Ramige and Bryant were part of a Forest Service crew heading to Schafer Meadows; Good was a Forest Service electronics technician.

To help get through the night, Hogg said she made a shelter out of scattered airplane parts: the engine cowling, doors, the windshield, a part of the aircraft's tail.

Hogg had previously told authorities that the shelter was eventually blown apart by high winds.

Good, 58, died the morning after the crash.

"Having Ken there that night really helped us," Hogg said of the first night, when the crash site had been covered in snow. "We used body heat to stay warm. Matt didn't have a shirt because his had been burned off. And so we kind of did like a Matt sandwich between Ken and I, and we just held onto each other all night, and talked and just hoped that they would come get us."

After Good died, Hogg and Ramige decided to leave the crash site through the Tunnel Creek drainage. They ended up hiking five miles in 29 hours, dropping some 2,500 feet in elevation before reaching U.S. 2 and help from passing motorists.

Hogg told Sawyer that during their trek she and Ramige saw planes and helicopters searching for the wreckage.

"Once we had dropped most of the elevation, we were in this field … we actually saw the helicopters going to the wreckage," she said.

Sawyer asked Hogg about her thoughts on the search effort.

"The officers have said they are deeply sorry for their assumption that no one had made it. Is that enough for you?"

"Yeah," Hogg replied. "I'm ready to close the book and move on and get my life started again."

Flathead County Sheriff Jim Dupont and Undersheriff Chuck Curry have repeatedly explained why they concluded that no one survived after Curry and others surveyed the crash site for about two hours on Sept. 21, the day it was discovered.

Hogg told the sheriff that she and Ramige had thought that leaving footprints in the snow would provide adequate evidence there were survivors. But by the time Curry and three other people arrived at the site, the snow had melted.

Curry said that he and the others searched an area in a radius extending roughly a quarter mile from the badly burned wreckage, looking for any sign that people had survived. No clues were found.

Curry said he was leaving footprints in the area, so he assumed any survivors would leave footprints. But in retrospect, he said, the snow likely prevented Hogg and Ramige from leaving lasting foot impressions in the soil.

The search lasted for only two hours because a descending cloud cover that afternoon would likely have prevented the helicopter from leaving the crash site. Curry said he felt an obligation to recover Good's body that day.

Ramige, meanwhile, is being treated for burns at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.

He underwent skin graft surgery on his chest Monday, his 30th birthday, according to hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg-Hanson.

"The next step will be surgery to treat burns on his hands," she said. "That will be sometime next week."

Gregg-Hanson said Ramige will be in the hospital at least through mid-October.

"He's talking and conscious, but he's not quite ready to sit up," she said. "And he's in good spirits, considering what he's been through."

Ramige suffered a spinal fracture and burns over 20 percent of his body on his hands, face and chest.

Hogg was released from Kalispell Regional Medical Center over the weekend. She suffered burns and bruises on her legs and hands, along with soft tissue damage to her back and an ankle.

Through family spokesmen, Hogg has declined interview requests other than "Good Morning America."

Jim Hogg, her father, said the family wants Jodee to be focused on her recovery for the next two or three weeks and would not be available for interviews until then, at least.

He said the family plans to do "a few more things" with ABC, however. The news magazine show "20/20" is reportedly planning a segment on the survivors' tale Friday night, according to Dupont.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com