Wheeler Cowperthwaite / Nevada Appeal
The call originally came to Douglas County’s dispatch center: a plane crash in the Spooner Summit area.
The Civil Air Patrol reported the crash at 2:15 p.m. Wednesday and the Douglas Search and Rescue team was called at 2:20 p.m. Carson City dispatch was notified at 2:40 and the first responders streamed up the rocky Kings Canyon Road, three miles short of Spooner Summit. Twenty-four minutes later, at 3:04, three miles from the summit, fire crews found two passengers and the pilot entirely unscathed waiting on the side of the road, Sheriff Ken Furlong said.
The single-engine Cessna 182 left from Carson City Airport to tour the area and was on its way back to the airport when it crashed.
“Kudos to the pilot,” Furlong said, for the pilot’s ability to land without any injuries.
Carson City Fire Department Battalion Chief John Arneson went out to the scene himself, with a command vehicle and two brush engines initially. The fire department found the pilot and passengers waiting on the side of the road, about two miles up, waiting.
“He put the airplane down in a little saddle about 40 yards down from the road,” in sagebrush. The pilot missed all the trees in the area, he said. “The pilot did an excellent job,” he said.
The Federal Aviation Administration will be investigating the incident.
The pilot called 911 and the authorities were able to get latitude and longitude coordinates to properly locate the wreckage.
A man and woman were driven by the Carson City Fire Department from the scene while the pilot stayed on scene to aid in the investigation.