Two people suffered only minor injuries Monday when their small plane went down in a heavily wooded area near Gumboot Mountain on the Clark/Skamania County border. They were rescued in a joint search operation Monday night.
The Washington State Department of Transportation had been leading a search for a Piper PA-32 Saratoga that was headed from Bend, Oregon, to the Tacoma Narrows Airport near Gig Harbor on Monday afternoon when the pilot radioed air traffic control in Portland that the engine was running rough and they were unable to maintain altitude and were descending through the clouds.
WSDOT said the plane’s last radar and voice contact was at 3:47 p.m. in forestland near Yacolt. No emergency beacon signal has been detected, but the last known radar contact gives crews a target search location.
A Navy helicopter out of Whidbey Island Naval Air Station was brought in to conduct a search in cooperation with a ground search by the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
