MOIESE, Mont. (AP) — A small aircraft may have been flying too
low when last seen near the Flathead River in northwestern Montana
with three passengers on board, including two newspaper reporters,
authorities said Tuesday.
Federal Aviation Administration radar data put the plane’s
altitude at 300 feet when it was last tracked west of the
18,500-acre National Bison Range. Several witnesses told searchers
they believe it was flying even lower than that, said Lake County
sheriff’s spokeswoman Carey Cooley.
“Five hundred feet is the absolute minimum, and that’s like in
the middle of Kansas with nothing around,” said FAA spokesman Mike
Fergus. “If he’s flying 300 feet above the ground, that’s
illegal.”
The bison range is 80 miles south of Kalispell, and the Flathead
River runs to the west, a large, braided waterway with steep hills
nearby. Searchers launched four sonar-equipped boats into the river
and were searching the brushy islands that dot it. Nine planes and
two helicopters were searching from the air, Cooley said.
The pilot of the rented 1968 blue-and-white Piper Arrow, Sonny
Kless of Missoula, along with reporters Melissa Weaver and Erika
Hoefer of the Daily Inter Lake and a friend, Brian Williams, took
off Sunday afternoon for a sightseeing trip.
FAA radar data showed the airplane traveled from Kalispell north
along the Whitefish Range, entered Glacier National Park airspace,
then headed south along the Swan Mountain Range, across Flathead
Lake to the bison range, Flathead County Sheriff’s Sgt. Ernie
Freebury said.
Several witnesses in the area reportedly saw a low-flying
blue-and-white plane near the Flathead River, Cooley said. The
witnesses said the plane did not appear to be experiencing
mechanical problems.
“Everyone said the same thing — it was flying very, very low,”
Cooley said.
Based on the witnesses’ reports and data gleaned from radar and
cell-phone towers, the river search was concentrated between the
town of Dixon and the confluence of the Flathead and Clark Fork
rivers several miles upstream, Cooley said. The air search covered
a much larger area, she said.
Searchers planned to continue until dark and then evaluate the
situation, she said.
The families of those aboard the plane gathered at the Lake
County sheriff’s command center in Moiese, awaiting word of their
fate.
Kless’ mother, Janelle Gentry of Kalispell, said her son just
graduated from the University of Montana and obtained his pilot’s
license about a year ago. She said Kless, 25, has flown the Glacier
National Park-Flathead Lake-Flathead River loop several times
before and that he is a good pilot.
She said Kless and Williams are both avid outdoorsmen.
“If anyone can survive out there, it would be Sonny,” Gentry
said. “We have many family members and the community praying, and
we remain hopeful.”
Kless last made radio contact with the tower at Glacier Park
International Airport Sunday at 2:11 p.m., about 40 minutes after
takeoff, reporting that the plane was east of Kalispell, traveling
north.
At least one text message was exchanged between Weaver and
Hoefer’s cell phones about an hour after that last contact, which
also helped track the plane’s last known location.
Weaver’s roommate contacted authorities when she didn’t return.
Flathead County Sheriff Mike Meehan said Hoefer, 27, last updated
her Facebook page about 10 minutes after taking off, writing:
“We’re flying to the park and we’re later going to a barbecue.”
The airplane is registered to Joel Woodruff, the general manager
of Northstar Jet, Inc., in Missoula. Woodruff declined to be
interviewed by telephone but agreed to answer questions by e-mail
on Tuesday.
Kless received all of his flight training at Northstar, and 30
of his 100 hours total flight time was in that Piper Arrow,
Woodruff said. The plane has no known mechanical issues and is
available for flight training and rental through the company.
Kless rented the plane on Sunday from noon to 4 p.m., telling
the staff he planned to do some sightseeing, and he departed
Missoula with one passenger, Woodruff said. Kless later extended
the reservation to 7:30 p.m.
“I myself cannot speak directly of his ability as a pilot, but
his flight instructor has conveyed to me that he was an exceptional
flight student with sound judgment and a natural ability to fly,”
Woodruff said.
Weaver, 23, covers police and courts. Her parents live in
Billings and were headed to Kalispell, Rick Weaver said. Hoefer is
a business reporter for the newspaper who also writes for the
Flathead Business Journal. She is from Beloit, Wis.
Both reporters began working for the newspaper at the end of
last year.
Kless is a friend of Williams, a University of Montana law
student, who is friends with the two reporters, said Wendy Martin,
the pilot’s girlfriend. She said she had called several of Kless’
friends with backpacking experience to help in the search.
“All of his friends are real outdoorsy. They’ll find them,”
Martin said.
FAA’s civil aviation registry shows Kless has a private pilot’s
license about a year old. A Sonny Kless with the same Missoula
address also is listed by the Montana Department of Justice as a
violent offender for a Wyoming robbery for which he was sentenced
in 2003.
Kless confessed to robbing a gas station in Elk Mountain, armed
with a shotgun and wearing a ski mask. He was sentenced to three to
five years in prison in December 2003 and released on probation
seven months later, Montana Department of Corrections spokesman Bob
Anez said.
Gentry said the robbery was a stupid mistake Kless made as a
teenager going through a rough patch in his life. She said he was
an adventurer who was planning a post-graduation trip to Europe
before heading to Taiwan to teach English.
___
Associated Press reporter Matt Volz contributed to this report
from Helena, Mont.
