Wind gust caused June plane crash in Great Bear Wilderness

WILDERNESS — 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 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.

The YouTube video below shows what a normal landing is like on the 3,200-foot grass strip at Schafer.