By Finley Timon EDITORIAL INTERN
Four Big Sky area volunteers with Gallatin County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue responded as mutual aid after a plane crashed south of West Yellowstone on Thursday night, July 17, according to a press release from the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office.
The crash proved fatal for all three victims on board.
The July 21 release stated that West Yellowstone Dispatch received a call at approximately 1:41 p.m. on July 18 regarding a possible plane crash. The U.S. Department of Transportation Aero Division had reported that an aircraft departing the West Yellowstone Airport shortly before midnight on July 17 with three people on board could not be located.
“Utilizing the last location of an occupants’ smart watch, two search planes were sent to search for the missing aircraft,” the release stated. “At 2:13 p.m. the search planes confirmed the plane had been located and crashed in dense timber just south of the town of West Yellowstone near South Plateau Rd.”
Gallatin County Sheriff’s Search and Rescue deployed “heli” and “comms” teams from West Yellowstone and Big Sky.
SAR members located the downed airplane and confirmed all three occupants were deceased. The victims were identified in the press release as Tennessee residents Rodney Conover, 60 and Madison Conover, 23, and Utah resident Kurt Enoch Robey, 55. Their remains were transported by helicopter and turned over to the Gallatin County Coroner’s Office.
The cause of the crash is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board.
Having multiple SAR teams available to respond can make all the difference in remote areas like Montana’s Northern Rockies, explained Big Sky GCSSAR volunteer Andy Dreisbach in a phone call with Explore Big Sky.
“We’re a very rural area so it’s paramount for the success of us to be able to rely on each other when we need,” he said. “I just think that it speaks to the training and availability of the personnel that whatever gets thrown at us we will react to it.”
Sheriff Dan Springer extended condolences to the families and thanked agencies involved, including the Hebgen Basin Rural Fire District, U.S. Forest Service, FAA and NTSB.
