KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — The National Transportation Safety Board says a wind gust pushed a single-engine Cessna off the end of a wilderness airstrip in northwestern Montana last month, causing a crash that injured three men.
The agency’s preliminary report says Red Eagle Aviation pilot Tom Glanville was fighting a down draft while trying to land the plane at Schafer Meadows in the Great Bear Wilderness on June 23. The wind shifted to a tail wind, pushing the plane down the runway and into the trees.
The Daily Inter Lake reports (http://bit.ly/1NWm9Hl) Glanville and passengers Aaron Wamsley of Pagosa Springs, Colorado, and Arthur Pegg of Lexington, Kentucky, were treated at a Kalispell hospital. The plane was damaged, but the fuselage remained intact.
The passengers were flying into the wilderness to begin a rafting trip down the Middle Fork of the Flathead River.
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Information from: Daily Inter Lake, http://www.dailyinterlake.com
