Plane Crash Survivors Recall Ordeal

Dec. 9, 2004-- -- When four U.S. Forest Service ecologists and their pilot took off in a small, single-engine plane from Kalispell, Mont., they never imagined that their excursion to a remote research camp in the northern Rocky Mountains would end in both tragedy and triumph.

Miraculously, two of the passengers would walk away after the plane crashed -- but not before facing the deaths of their colleagues and coming to grips with their own mortality.

Jodee Hogg, 23, remembers the pristine view from the plane's cabin just before the Sept. 20 crash.

"[There was] a light dusting of snow on all the peaks so the features were really standing out," she said. "It was gorgeous."

But the weather suddenly turned ugly. Storm clouds big enough to be seen by satellite 23,000 miles away rolled in to cover the mountaintops.

The pilot, Jim Long, was forced to drop the aircraft down and weave his way between rocky walls.

Long then made what would turn out to be a tragic error: He turned into a canyon surrounded by mountains on three sides and hidden by clouds.

The plane slammed into a 7,000-foot ridge, skidded about 40 feet and flipped upside down before catching fire.

Rescuers searched for the plane for nearly 24 hours before finding the smoldering wreckage. Surveying the crash site, they believed no one could have survived. The passengers' families were told to prepare for the worst.

"The first thing I thought of is, 'People don't survive small plane crashes,'" said Hogg's identical twin, Kyna. "They just don't."

Her father, Jim, refused to believe his daughter was gone. He kept calling her cell phone -- but got no answer. Hogg's grief-stricken family began making funeral arrangements and her brother, Ryan, wrote an obituary.

But back in the wilderness, Hogg had regained consciousness in the wreckage of the plane. Despite suffering burns and a sprained foot, she unbuckled her seat belt, opened the door of the plane and tumbled out onto the snowy mountain peak.

Then she heard a voice coming from the burning wreckage. It was her friend Matt Ramige.

Ramige's foot was caught. Hogg helped him get free.

"If it weren't for her, I don't know if I could have got out of the plane by myself," said Ramige, 30, who had a broken back and burns over 20 percent of his body.

But they were not the only survivors.

With his last bit of strength, pilot Long reached over, unhooked the seat belt of the man sitting next to him and pushed him from the fiery cockpit to the ground outside. Long himself never made it out.

The passenger he saved was Ken Good, a veteran woodsman and the person in charge. Good was badly burned, with a broken leg and internal injuries, but he was still conscious.

Devita Bryant, the fourth Forest Service employee, was motionless amid the wreckage. "She wasn't talking, she wasn't moving," said Hogg.

Fearing the plane might explode at any moment, Ramige called for Hogg to get away from the site. The two pulled Good up the slope to safety.

As night fell, the fire died down and they took shelter under the plane's tail, trying to keep Good alive.

Hogg spent the night talking to Good, trying to keep him awake, but as morning approached, Good was quiet.

"I had his face in my hands," Hogg remembered. "I was yelling at him, 'Ken, Ken, wake up! I need you to wake up, Ken. Please wake up.'"

But Good was dead. Now there were just two survivors with little clothing, no food and no water.

With the threat of another cold and wet night in the mountains facing them, Hogg and Ramige realized they had to decide what to do --