(Photo by National Park Service)

A small, single-engine plane crashed at Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado yesterday (July 8, 2010) at approximately 12:30 PM.  Both of the American Champion Aircraft 8KCAB (registration N56BC) occupants were relatively OK after the accident.

There is very little information available regarding the crash.  However, the National Park Service stated that the accident plane had departed an airport in Greeley, Colorado (possibly Greeley-Weld County Airport – GXY) and was headed towards the Aspen area when it crashed into a remote, wooded area below a main park road.  The plane went down in Forest Canyon near the Gore Range Overlook.  It seems as if the plane was trying to clear the very high mountains by following the Forest Canyon at the time of the crash.  The plane did not catch fire after the impact with trees and terrain.  It is not currently known why the plane crashed.

Aboard the plane was pilot and the aircraft’s owner, Dr. James “Jim” Michaels, as well as his daughter (and also a pilot), Tonie Michaels.  While it took the Civil Air Patrol (CAP) until Thursday night to find the location of the survivors, rescuers weren’t able to reach the site until 6:40 AM Friday morning.  The occupants built a shelter from parts of the plane and tree limbs.  They also lit two signal fires which were seen by the CAP flights Thursday night.

The aircraft is registered to Michaels Air Service LLC in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.  According to various news reports, the pilot was investigated by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) a few years ago for flying an airplane to low and landing an airplane in an unauthorized area.

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