One person dead, one survivor in vintage biplane crash

The crash of a vintage biplane in a forested area of south-central Washington state left one person dead and another injured.

The 1943 Stearman plane crashed Friday in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, about 12 miles northwest of the town of Stevenson, Washington.

Authorities have not released the name of the person killed, nor the name of the survivor.  The plane was registered to a man who lives in Eatonville.

The antique biplane took off from the Enumclaw area Friday afternoon and was part of a three-aircraft formation headed to Hood River, Oregon in the Columbia River Gorge.

The planes were taking part in the Western Antique Aeroplane and Automobile Museum’s Fly-in.

The crashed Stearman had made a stop at the South Lewis County airport before continuing toward the Columbia River Gorge just before noon.

The pilots of the other two planes say the Stearman broke away from the formation during the flight and disappeared.

About 90 minutes after the two planes arrived in Hood River, their pilots notified the Washington State Department of Transportation Air Search and Rescue that the Stearman did not arrive.

Department of Transportation crews used cell phone and radar data to determine the coordinates of where the plane went down.

Using cell phone data and radar information, the searchers determined the plane’s flight path ended about 12 miles northwest of Stevenson right around 1:00 p.m.

A Skamania County ground search and rescue team launched.  After more than an hour of hiking through the thick forest, they arrived in the area and heard shouts from the survivor.

“They heard a male, they believed, a male voice yelling,” said Sgt. Ryan Taylor of the Skamania County Sheriff’s Department and the Search and Rescue Coordinator. “The crash site was not visible.  We immediately dispatched the Coast Guard.”

A U.S. Coast Guard rescue helicopter flew in from Astoria and searched from the air.

An air crew from the Hood River area also tried to locate the missing plane or detect a distress radio beacon.

The ground crew fought through thick brush.  The team of 18 search-and-rescue personnel located the crash site around 6:20 p.m.

“It was 12 members from the Volcano Search-and-Rescue Team.  We had three members of the Skamania County Sheriff’s Office Search-and-Rescue Team and two personnel from the North Country Emergency Medical Service and myself,” Taylor said.

He says it appeared the aircraft broke into pieces after hitting the tops of trees and fell to the ground.

“The aircraft was extremely damaged and into the trees, but it was on the forest floor,” he said.

Rescuers hoisted the survivor into the Coast Guard helicopter and flew him to the Portland International Airport, where medics were standing by.

“He was able to extricate himself from the wreckage and was located close to the wreckage,” Taylor said.

The injured man appeared to have a head injury and was unable to walk, due to other injuries.

Crews found the person killed inside part of the plane.

“And then they had to carry that subject back up and out,”  Taylor said.  “I take my hat off to those search-and-rescue personnel that were at the scene.  The did a phenomenal job.”

Washington Department of Transportation officials report there were many different agencies involved in the effort to locate the crash.

Those include Skamania County Search and Rescue, the U.S. Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, United States Coast Guard’s Air Station Astoria, the National Civil Air Patrol Radar and Cell Phone Forensics Teams, the Washington Air Search and Rescue team and personnel from Washington’s Department of Transportation.

An investigation into the crash will be conducted by the National Transportation Safety Board.

The historic biplane was a product of a division of the Boeing Aircraft Company. From 1934 until February 1945, the Stearman Aircraft Company built a total of 8,428 Model 75 airplanes for the U.S. Army and U.S. Navy.

The Boeing Stearman, or Kaydet, served primarily as a pilot training aircraft for the United States Army Air Forces, the United States Navy and the Royal Canadian Air Force throughout World War II.

There are still more than a thousand Stearman planes flying today.

The Stearman has a wingspan of 32 feet, a height of nine feet, and a length of 24 feet, and can fly up to 11,000 feet.

Tom Brock is a weekend editor, reporter and anchor for KIRO Newsradio.