Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part one, with part two scheduled to appear in Sunday’s Tribune.
———
MCCALL — Pilot error was the cause of a single-engine airplane crash in August 2021 that killed two people and seriously injured another east of McCall, according to an investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board.
James Atkins, 56, of McCall, and Donald MacRae, 62, of Las Vegas, were killed after the airplane in which they were passengers crashed into a mountainside about 60 miles east of McCall in the Frank Church – River of No Return Wilderness on Aug. 28, 2021.
The crash was the result of pilot Bryan Grey’s “decision to continue into a canyon that exceeded the climb performance of the airplane,” an accident report released by the NTSB said.
The Cessna 206 airplane collided with several trees around 1:16 p.m., leaving behind a debris field 120 feet long and about 50 feet wide. Rescuers found the wreckage around 4:46 p.m.
Grey, a pilot for McCall Aviation at the time, was taken to a hospital in Boise with serious injuries following the crash, but was later released. Atkins and MacRae both died at the scene.
It is unclear if Grey is still employed by McCall Aviation, which declined to comment to The Star-News, citing potential litigation stemming from the crash.
The crash happened as Grey was flying the airplane back to the McCall Municipal Airport after a scenic flight Atkins and MacRae chartered to scout fishing locations.
The flight was Grey’s first scenic flight with passengers on board, though Grey is an “experienced military fighter jet pilot with extensive low-level flight training,” the report said.
Grey was attempting to fly the six-seat airplane out of a canyon over a 9,000-foot-tall ridgeline, but crashed about 1,000 feet below the ridge after striking a 60-foot-tall tree.
Grey told investigators he realized the airplane would not be able to outclimb the terrain and decided to turn the airplane around to gain more altitude.
“After starting the turn, the airplane encountered a downdraft and descended into trees,” the NTSB report said.
The airplane was flying around 55 knots, or about 62 miles per hour, when flight track data ended about 90 feet from the location of the wreckage.
Grey had logged 2,750 total flight hours at the time of the crash, including about 29 hours on the Cessna 206, which he was approved to fly on June 14, 2021.
He began flying the Cessna 206 involved in the crash in May 2021 as part of training to fly for McCall Aviation, which owned the airplane and charters backcountry flights from McCall.
Grey told investigators he had flown in and out of drainages “multiple times by himself” in the Cessna 206 airplane.
The NTSB is a federal agency responsible for investigating all aviation accidents in the country, as well as accidents involving boats, railroads and pipelines.
— Drew Dodson, The Star-News (McCall), Thursday
