Rescuers battled extreme cold at high elevation to rescue two people who went down in a plane Saturday in the Devil’s Causeway and McGinnis Lake area of western Colorado.
The Garfield County Sheriff’s Office was notified about the crash around 12:15 p.m. and about 90 minutes later a medical helicopter arrived on scene to pick up the two people, who had been reported as “alive and talking” to other aircraft in the area.
The plane went down at 11,700 feet and the temperature at that elevation was minus 18 degrees, authorities said. Another pilot in the area saw the plane going down and that pilot was able to communicate with the two occupants of the downed plane and identify their location.
Both occupants of the plane were transported by air to a landing spot near Meeker and then proceeded by ambulance to a hospital, where they were checked for possible injuries and exposure to extreme cold.
It is unclear what caused the forced landing at this time.
“Due to the quick response and combined efforts of several entities a High Mountain Rescue of the survivors from a downed aircraft was successfully made today in less than four hours from the time the plane initially was forced to land,” the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Saturday night.
