Alaska Plane Crash: Rescuers Describe Harrowing Mission That Saved Four Lives

ANCHORAGE, Alaska Aug. 11, 2010 — -- Two days after the plane carrying former Sen. Ted Stevens and 9 others crashed into an Alaska mountain, harrowing new details about the ill-fated trip and the aftermath are coming to light.

Inside the tiny, twisted wreckage, four survivors spent a horrific night. The living and the dead were trapped inside the plane, shoulder to shoulder for hours.

Watch "World News with Diane Sawyer" for the latest on the crash tonight on ABC.

Some of the few rescuers who made it to the steep mountainside, including three good Samaritans, were dropped in by aircraft under dangerously low visibility.

Today, they described an impossibly slick, muddy slope – so treacherous they had a hard time just standing up as they tried to pry the plane open.

"There was just one survivor outside the plane under the wing and that's where he had spent the night," said Master Sgt. Jonathan Davis, one of the first National Guardsmen on the scene. "He was one of the younger ones."

Thirteen year old William Phillips survived the crash, only to watch his father die before his eyes. Former NASA chief Sean O'Keefe and his son were hurt, but alive. The body of Stevens, who apparently died on impact, was confined along with them inside the tiny fuselage.

"I think they did have thoughts of their friends that were next to them but also a lot of their energies was going towards their survival and the will to live," Davis told ABC News.

Survival seemed to be a lottery. One passenger in the front seat survived and rescuers strung a tarp over the cockpit to keep him dry. The pilot sitting next to him died in the crash, his body still strapped into his seat.