Crash Site Reached; All 5 Killed House Sergeant At Arms Aboard Flight For Stranded Vacationers

A Boise pilot, a legislative employee and three others were presumed killed in the crash of a small plane into a snow-covered mountain as they were trying to return home from McCall.

But efforts to recover the victims on Saturday were stifled by deep snow and the inaccessibility of the crash site on Cuddy Mountain, about 20 miles northwest of Council.

Trudi Bolinder, 63, a pilot for nine years, was flying back to Boise after fetching vacationers stranded in the resort town by flood-damaged roads. She was making the trip as a favor for a friend.

The plane went down Thursday afternoon during a snowstorm that forced several other small planes back to the McCall airport.

Passengers on the single-engine Cessna 210 reportedly included Susan Hansen, newly appointed sergeant at arms for the Idaho House of Representatives.

Staff members at the state Capitol, busy with preparations for Monday’s opening of the 1997 Legislature, mourned as word spread Friday about the crash.

Authorities declined to release the names of the other three passengers.

Deep snows prevented rescuers, who spotted the aircraft from a helicopter, from reaching the wreckage after it was found Friday evening. Washington County sheriff’s deputies reached the crash site on Saturday and found no survivors, but the condition of the wreckage kept them from confirming even how many people had been on board.

“There’s so much destruction. It’s all together, but it’s just like it was put in a trash compactor,” Deputy Brian Graham said.

He said a snow cat likely would return to the scene today to retrieve the victims’ remains.

A search of a 100-square-mile area near McCall was launched Friday morning by three fixed-wing planes and three helicopters in what Idaho Division of Aeronautics Administrator Bart Welsh called “very, very bad conditions - snowstorms, blizzards, heavy winds.”

An Idaho National Guard helicopter spotted the wreckage in deep snow on Cuddy Mountain, a peak that overlooks the Snake River Canyon.

The helicopter landed and a crew member tried to walk to the plane but was stopped by chest-high snow, Welsh said. He was able to get close enough to verify the identification numbers.