Two Men Walk Away From Plane Crash

Yellowstone National Park (ID,MT,WY)
Two Men Walk Away From Plane Crash

Two Alaska men walked away from an airplane crash after their single-engine Piper 180 aircraft went down just outside the park’s boundary near Sylvan Pass on the evening of Friday, October 11th.

James Betzhold, 61, and his son Douglas Betzhold, 25, both from Beluga, Alaska, were en route to Boise, Idaho. The pair had just taken off from Yellowstone Regional Airport in Cody, Wyoming, when the crash occurred.

The Park Country Sheriff's Office 911 Communications Center received a report on an overdue aircraft shortly after midnight on Friday. Rangers and personnel from Park County Search and Rescue began a joint search for the aircraft at first light on Saturday morning. Search crews were able to approximate the location of the aircraft through tracking signals from its emergency location transmitter. A county SAR aircraft located the wreckage shortly before 9 a.m. and was able to confirm that both occupants had survived.

As rescuers began making their way to the site of the crash, approximately 1,500 yards south of the East Entrance Road, both men were seen walking out under their own power. The men sustained bruises, lacerations and possible fractures. Both were transported to West Park Hospital by ambulance.

The exact cause of the crash is as yet undetermined. The investigation has been turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration in coordination with the National Park Service.