Kalispell, Montana. Sept. 23, 2004. When a plane crashed in the Mountains of the Great Bear Wilderness Area (south of Glacier National Park),
On Sept. 20, 2004, a flight carrying four Forest Service employees and a charter contractor pilot headed for the Schafer Meadows Guard Station in the Bob Marshall Wilderness in Montana. The plane crashed in the Great Bear Wilderness, Flathead National Forest, near Great Northern Mountain.
Government officials pronounced that there were no survivors 11 minutes after arriving at the crash site via helicopter. Officials called off all ground search and rescue, “even though experienced hikers in the area
were eager to help.” “One volunteer told the Associated Press that she and another person had organized a group to search for survivors, but their offer to help was declined: There were 100 people waiting in
Whitefish to do this. It’s possible we could have been very useful and saved some people some suffering.
Last night, we sat on the couch
and cried instead of being out hiking
and searching. And we just accepted
what we were told.
As with many mountain “search and rescue operations,” government officials took over a nearby trailhead and set up podiums for press conferences. Both the County sheriff and the US Forest Service pronounced the mountain off-limits to the public.
Two days later, two survivors–badly burned and injured–stumbled onto U.S. highway 2. According to the Spokesman Review. “They were spotted by a motorist on U.S. 2 who then went to a bar in the Essex area and asked the bartender to call for help.”
Survivor Jodee Hogg said he didn’t understand why they stopped looking even though there were two bodies clearly visible outside the plane, “you know, intact, and knowing that there were five people and
there were footprints all over the place in the snow.” “I guess I just wonder why – why we didn’t get
picked up on Tuesday. . .”
Astoundingly the US government did not even acknowledge any errors. The Forest Service press release suggested the County sheriff was to blame. “Originally no one was believed to have survived the crash, according to the Flathead County Sheriff’s Office.” The press release did not even mention that the government had closed the mountain to the public.
