REGIONAL NEWS ROUNDUP: Plane crash in McCall sends 2 to hospital with life-threatening injuries

Stories in this Regional News Roundup are excerpted from weekly newspapers from around the region. This is part two, with part one having appeared in Saturday’s Tribune.

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MCCALL, Idaho — Until Monday morning, Angela Kirkland never thought twice about airplanes flying overhead as she tended to her daycare classes during recess at a playground at McCall Baptist Church.

Kirkland, a teacher at the Little Sprouts Kiddie Kampus at 300 Stibnite Ave., was supervising her class of 16 children at the playground when a Cessna R182 plane crashed in a wooded area about 100 yards away.

“All of a sudden, we heard crashing in the trees and could see the two trees falling down,” Kirkland said. “That’s when it registered that, ‘Oh my gosh, that was a plane that just went down.’ ”

Two men aboard the airplane were taken on a utility task vehicle to St. Luke’s McCall Medical Center by McCall Fire and EMS with “life-threatening injuries,” but later were flown by helicopter to a hospital in Boise.

The names of the men, whose conditions were unknown as of Wednesday, could not be released by McCall Fire because of federal privacy laws.

The airplane was piloted by an experienced pilot with one passenger on board when it took off from the north end of the airport runway at about 9:50 a.m., McCall Communications Manager Erin Greaves said.

Minutes later and less than a half-mile from the end of the runway, the airplane smashed into trees and brush on city land that contains a disc golf course near Stibnite Avenue and Mission Street.

The crash was reported by personnel at the Sawtooth Flying Service and the McCall Smokejumper Base that saw the airplane take off and fail to maintain altitude.

Kirkland rushed to the wreckage immediately after the crash as other daycare workers corralled the class of 4- and 5-year-old’s back into the daycare building, which is located next to the church playground.

Kirkland found the pilot of the airplane unresponsive, but comforted the passenger, who she said was coherent, until first responders arrived.

She then returned to the daycare building to help other workers explain to the children what had happened.

“We were just trying to reassure them that the best thing to do is just let the police take care of it,” Kirkland said. “I’m just grateful that the kids were safe.”

The crash has left Kirkland looking toward the sky as she hears airplanes taking off and landing at the airport, which is about 2,500 feet south of the daycare building and church playground.

“Every time since the crash, I’ve looked up to see if the planes are closer than I think they are,” she said.

An investigator from the National Transportation Safety Board’s Federal Way, Wash., office was dispatched to the scene Monday to begin an investigation into the crash.

A preliminary report is expected in about two weeks.

It is not uncommon for airplanes to take off from the north end of the mile-long runway and begin flights over downtown McCall.

“Directional use of a runway is determined by prevailing winds,” Airport Manager Emily Hart said. “More pilots land and depart to the south, but plenty also land and depart to the north.”

The crash did not spark any brush fires in the wooded area surrounding the wreckage, which McCall Fire Chief Garrett de Jong attributed in part to a lack of leaking fuel.

“There was no sign of fuel at all around the crash site,” de Jong said.

The airplane involved in the crash is not based in McCall. It was most recently registered to a Longmont, Colo., pilot training company belonging to Shane Warner, according to Federal Aviation Administration registration records.

However, Warner listed the airplane for sale for $225,000 in May through an online airplane trades and sales platform.

On Tuesday, Warner declined to comment on the crash or the ownership of the airplane.

Kaleigh Kesler, who owns the Little Sprouts daycare, took time after the crash Monday to give the students an overview of what first responders do and why they are important.

Kesler was thankful that brush shielded any graphic visuals from the children.

“It was in the trees enough to where the kids knew what happened, but they couldn’t see what happened, which was kind of a blessing,” she said.

— Drew Dodson, The Star-News (McCall), Thursday