'Roller coaster' at 8,000 feet

Three survive rough landing in wilderness area

The De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver's sole engine suddenly quit 8,000 feet over the Bob Marshall Wilderness early Monday evening.

No one knows why: There was still plenty of fuel left in the plane.

Pilot Steve Mohns, 54, and passenger Ed Watson, 43 - both of Mount Vernon, Wash. - went through the procedures to kick the engine back to life.

No luck.

It was time to glide to a landing.

They spotted a grassy field about 11 miles to the southeast - a good emergency landing spot.

Watson turned to his 15-year-old daughter Alissa in back. He told her: "Make sure you got your seat belt on tight."

"OK, Dad," she calmly replied.

Meanwhile, the pilot sent out Mayday calls. An Air Canada aircraft picked up the distress signal and relayed coordinates to rescuers.

The rugged 40-plus-year-old De Havilland - built for bush flying - glided for three, maybe four minutes.

It glided for perhaps 10 miles, down to about 300 to 400 feet from the ground.

But the plane wasn't going to make it to the field.

It was time for Plan B.

Watson told Mohns: Turn hard left to land on a sandbar on the South Fork of the Flathead River at Murphy Flat.

Mohns banked left, dodged a couple tree tops and skimmed past some stumps.

The plane - designed with its landing gear always down - skipped off the gravel along the river. Then it skipped off the water and skipped back onto the gravel shore.

"It was scary at first," Allison Watson said. "It was almost like a roller coaster ride to me."

"And she likes roller coasters," her dad piped in.

After 150 to 200 yards, the plane finally rolled to a stop. It began to flip up on its nose, but then it settled back upright.

Allison Watson then said: "That was fun, Dad."

The plane had landed about 2.5 miles southeast of Big Salmon Lake. Big Salmon Lake is about 14 miles northeast of Condon.

"The next thing - I looked up and saw we were way in the middle of nowhere. … Thank God and Steve's amazing pilot skills. …. I never thought we were gonna die and I never thought we were gonna get hurt," Watson said.

A couple of minutes later, a fisherman named Carlos - Watson didn't know his last name - showed up.

"He was comin' out of the woods. He looked like those old pictures of Jesus. He asked, 'You guys OK?'" Watson said.

Several minutes later, two men on a horse and a mule arrived. One had a satellite phone, and Watson called for help.

Kalispell Regional Medical Center's ALERT helicopter - crewed by pilot George Taylor, flight nurse Bill Norton and paramedic Ken Gerhard - flew to the wilderness site, expecting the worst.

When the helicopter landed near the plane, Norton thought: "Where are the victims?"

"There were people walking around calm and collected," Norton said.

The De Havilland suffered a dent on a wing, a banged-up left landing gear and damage to the propeller and cowling.

The ALERT helicopter flew out the Watsons, but left Gerhard because of the lack of room on the aircraft. No one was injured.

The plane was flying from Mount Vernon to an air show in Oshkosh, Wis. - a plan that is now scrapped.

Rangers from the Spotted Bear Ranger Station hiked into the wilderness, reached the crash site at about 11 p.m. Monday and stayed with Mohns.

"Our focus right now is assisting with the logistics of getting the pilot out and dealing with the plane in light of wilderness policies," said Denise Germann, public affairs officer with the Flathead National Forest.

Forest Service officials were working with outfitters to get the pilot a ride out on horseback. Under wilderness management rules, he cannot be flown out because he was not seriously injured.

Once the National Transportation Safety Board completes an investigation, Spotted Bear District Ranger Deb Mucklow will decide how the plane should be extracted from the wilderness.

Airlifting the plane out "is a possibility," Germann said.

Before leaving Mount Vernon on Monday morning, Allison Watson had received a text message from a friend with a request to forward it to 10 others. The teen rarely forwards such messages, but on Monday she did.

The forwarded text message: "God is going to help you today."