One dead and two injured as plane crashes in popular US national park
A small plane crashed in a remote area of Olympic National Park in Washington state, leaving one person dead and two injured.
The Murphy SR3500 Moose carrying three people dropped in the Quinault area of the national park on Tuesday evening.
National Park Service officials described the crash site as ‘a forested, steep slope’ north of the Irely Lake Trailhead.
‘Rangers immediately coordinated a response with Naval Air Station Whidbey Island Search and Rescue,’ stated the park service.
All three victims were rushed to a nearby trauma center. One died and the other two received medical treatment.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known. It is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
Authorities have not identified the victims.
Olympic National Park in Port Angeles was the tenth most visited national park in the US in 2023, with 2.95 million visitors, according to the outdoors company KÜHL.
‘With its incredible range of precipitation and elevation, diversity is the hallmark of Olympic National Park,’ states the park service.
‘Encompassing nearly a million acres, the park protects a vast wilderness, thousands of years of human history, and several distinctly different ecosystems, including glacier-capped mountains, old-growth temperate rain forests, and over 70 miles of wild coastline.’
The crash happened more than two months after a tour van with 14 occupants collided with a pickup truck near Yellowstone National Park and burst into flames. Two witnesses on a highway managed to rescue eight people from the smoking van including a child. The driver and six passengers were killed.
And in 2019, a tour bus with 30 people on board crashed near a highway rest stop close to Bryce Canyon National Park in Utah, killing at least four people and leaving several others seriously injured. The canyon is famous for its narrow red-hued spires and is about 300 miles south of Salt Lake City.
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