The rescuers who first arrived to help a woman severely injured in a plane crash that killed three other people Friday on Admiralty Island near Juneau say she spent hours on the ground unaided, due to delays reaching her caused by poor weather.
Sitka Mountain Rescue captain Lance Ewers said Sunday that the sole survivor of the Cessna 206's Friday crash, 21-year-old Ketchikan resident Morgan Enright, was flown to Kake and then Juneau for initial treatment. A medevac flight took Enright from Juneau to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where she remained listed in critical condition Sunday.
Members of Juneau Mountain Rescue subsequently recovered the bodies of three men, all Wrangell residents, from the Sunrise Aviation aircraft: pilot David Galla, 60; Greg Scheff, 61; and Thomas Siekawitch, 57.
Coast Guard officials said the Cessna was en route from Wrangell to Angoon at the time of the crash, with its emergency beacon activating near the southern coast of Admiralty Island just before 10 a.m. Friday.
Ewers said a training event for search and rescue organizations across the state happened to be taking place locally when Sitka Mountain Rescue got the call for help Friday,
"The teachers are in town here in Sitka that teach all of the mountain rescue groups in Alaska," Ewers said. "We were all schooled up and ready to go."
Ewers said he helped staff a command post for the response, while several Sitka Mountain Rescue members headed to the scene. It took several hours for rescuers to reach the site after the crash, with high winds preventing the Coast Guard chopper that flew them in from immediately deploying a rescue swimmer to get to the plane.
"They found the aircraft right away, but because of the turbulence we were the first people on scene," Ewers said. "When they got on scene they found the one lady still alive, so that was really encouraging and surprising."
National Transportation Safety Board investigator Shaun Williams said an on-scene investigation of the crash site was completed Saturday, with two helicopters working to retrieve the Cessna's wreckage Sunday. He said there weren't any immediate indications as to why the plane crashed, pending an interview with Enright when her condition permits.
"At this point we have not spoken with her yet," Williams said.