The National Park Service announced on Monday it was suspending recovery efforts for two men who died earlier this month in a plane crash in Denali National Park & Preserve.
Pilot Jason Tucker, 45, of Wasilla, and passenger Nicolas Blace, 44, of Chugiak, both died Aug. 9 after their Piper PA-18 aircraft crashed to the north of the Yentna River’s West Fork.
“With great empathy for the families of the deceased pilot and hunter,” said Brooke Merrell, Denali Park superintendent, in a press release Monday, “we have made the difficult determination not to attempt a recovery effort at this time. The steep terrain at the accident site would make a recovery operation too dangerous to further risk the lives of rangers.”
Officials came to Monday’s decision after working with TEMSCO helicopter pilots to test out the feasibility of lifting the downed aircraft out of the ravine using a mechanical grabber at the end of a 450-foot-long line. “Once we actually started getting photographs of where he was, where the crash was, then it started to become real that, ‘Now, I understand what you mean by a non-survivable accident,’” said James Tucker, the younger brother of Jason Tucker.
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