Park Service will not attempt recovery of wreckage

Today (Friday) Rangers from the National Park Service were able to reach the wreckage of a flightseeing plane that crashed in Denali National Park and Preserve on August 4th with five people onboard. A ranger was short-hauled to the crash site by a high-altitude helicopter and searched the wreckage for nearly an hour, remaining attached to the helicopter for safety.

The de Havilland Beaver, operated by K2 Aviation and flown by pilot Craig Layson, was carrying four Polish passengers when it crashed near the summit of Thunder Mountain, roughly 14 miles southwest of the summit of Denali. NPS confirmed on Monday that four people died and a fifth was unaccounted for. Rangers located the fifth body inside the wreckage today. NPS is not releasing the names of the passengers at the request of the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Los Angeles.

The crash site includes multiple hazards, including avalanche danger, crevasses, unstable blocks of ice loosely attached to the mountain, and aircraft-related concerns such as protruding pieces of jagged metal. The wreckage sits in a crevasse. The aircraft is broken in half behind the wing and the tail section of the fuselage is pulling the aircraft down the steep slope. More than two and a half feet of new snow has fallen at the crash site.

In a press release, NPS said that the focus of recovery efforts has been on the safety of personnel, the stability of the aircraft, and the complexity of possible recovery operations.  Based on the two ranger visits to the wreckage this week, NPS has determined that recovery of the deceased and removal of the aircraft exceed an acceptable level of risk and will not be attempted.

(photos courtesy of National Park Service)