Disaster at Denali

Our second day at Denali National Park started out great. We found a great hike that we did not need to take a bus to and right after lunch we got started. Sara chose to stay at the RV, work on her bead work and get some sun.

Starting at the visitor center, we hiked up 1,700 feet on the 4.5 mile long Mt Healy Overlook trail. The trail was steep, but not unbearable. We got to the top at about 2:30pm and took some photos (big surprise there). Bill decided to stay at the overlook while the boys and Michelle hiked a ridge leading to another mountain.

While switching to my telephoto lens I looked into the valley and saw a large cargo plane down below where I was standing. I thought to myself that would be a great photo and then realized that the left wing of the aircraft was well below the body and it looked like it was turning much too hard for an aircraft of that size. The next moment I saw the plane become a huge fireball and realized the immense tragedy that just took place.

I called for Michelle and the kids to come back. They had heard the explosion and then raced back to see what had happened. Another couple were also at the overlook and one of them called 911 and was the first to report the accident.

We waited for more than an hour to see what was going to happen. We heard sirens, but did not see a rush of emergency vehicles – in fact for most of the park it looked like they never knew what had happened.

We were concerned that the forest fire resulting from the crash might trap us in the woods if we tried to descend, so we stayed put. After 1 ½ hours it was clear the fire was not moving fast, so we decided to head down to the visitor center and our RV.

Half way down the mountain, Keegan radioed us (he had left after us and basically ran down the mountain for the fun of it) that a ranger told him that fire fighters were in the plane that was circling the area and they were about to parachute into the crash site to help put out the fire. About eight individuals jumped out of the plane to battle the blaze.

Once down, I downloaded the photos from by camera onto a flash drive and took them to the visitor center to the security ranger in charge. Apparently many people heard the explosion, but I was the only one who actually saw the plane before it went down.

We learned the next day in the newspaper that the plane was a C-123 cargo plane and that it had a three member crew.