Deseret News, Friday, January 03, 2003
Dramatic rescue for crash victims
Copters lift pair off a rugged peak in Beaver
By Jennifer Dobner Deseret News staff writer
    Drawing from the best of the Sunday night television movie scripts, a Salt Lake Community College flight instructor and his student were rescued by helicopters from a rugged mountainside Thursday after crashing a small plane into Beaver County's Mineral Mountains New Year's Day.
    The plane, a single-engine, fixed-wing craft owned by the college, crashed about 10 p.m. Wednesday, one hour after its takeoff in Cedar City. Instructor Phillip White and his student Jay Watkins were on a northbound flight pattern headed for Delta, said Allen Kenitzer, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration in Seattle. The accident is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
    Rescuing White and Watkins, who is a Utah Highway Patrol trooper, required the combined resources of the Utah Civil Air Patrol, a Utah Highway Patrol helicopter and the Beaver County Sheriff's Office search and rescue crews.
    Beaver County dispatchers got a 911 call at 10:05 p.m. Wednesday from White. "We've crashed somewhere. I need help," he said. White said the plane had been flying at 8,500 feet and had passed over Minersville but that he had no idea where it had crashed. "We're both very hurt," he added.
    A Cedar City- based Civil Air Patrol plane spotted a flashlight beam on the mountainside and pinpointed the location for a Utah Highway Patrol helicopter. UHP pilots used night-vision goggles to spot the downed plane and then shuttled in emergency medical workers to a location about 100 feet above the plane, Beaver County sheriff's dispatcher Jared Bridge said. A second Civil Air Patrol, EMS crews and a search-and-rescue team hauled White and Watkins up the mountainside. Meanwhile, UHP pilots lifted a second group of search-and-rescue workers with chain saws to a nearby ridge where they cut down several trees to create a landing pad for medical helicopters from LDS Hospital in Salt Lake.
    Both men suffered several broken bones, cuts and hypothermia, a hospital spokeswoman said. White was listed in serious condition Friday morning and Watkins, who had surgery on Thursday, was listed in fair condition.
    Watkins is already a licensed private pilot, but was getting additional training when the accident occurred, NTSB investigator Arnold Scott said. Early information about the accident indicates that Watkins was at the controls when the plane crashed, he added. It was unknown Thursday if mechanical problems contributed to the accident, but weather was not a factor. The National Weather Service reported no cloud cover or inclement weather in the area Wednesday night.
    "The information I got was that one of the pilots (said) that they simply didn't see the mountain," Scott said. © 2003 Deseret News Publishing Company