{"id":2453834,"date":"2020-01-28T22:00:01","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/deep-snow-steep-slope-complicated-plane-crash-rescue-near-aspen\/"},"modified":"2020-01-28T22:00:01","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T05:00:01","slug":"deep-snow-steep-slope-complicated-plane-crash-rescue-near-aspen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/deep-snow-steep-slope-complicated-plane-crash-rescue-near-aspen\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep snow, steep slope complicated plane-crash rescue near Aspen"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
A plane that crashed Monday near Lenado is held in place on a steep slope by its parachute.<\/strong>
Provided<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

By the time Mountain Rescue Aspen volunteers made it within a half-mile of a small plane crash Monday evening near Lenado, it was pitch dark, snowing heavily and the wind was blowing hard.<\/p>\n

Seven teams of rescuers \u2014 25 people in all \u2014 had been breaking trail through waist-deep snow and were coming at the plane\u2019s reported GPS coordinates at about 9,400 feet from different directions, Patrol Capt. Jesse Steindler of the Pitkin County Sheriff\u2019s Office said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt that point, we called the pilot (on his cellphone) and asked him to turn on as many lights (in the plane) as he could,\u201d Steindler said. \u201cIt was those lights that attracted the rescuers to the location.\u201d<\/p>\n

The plane \u2014 a 2017 Cirrus SR22T \u2014 had been flying Monday afternoon from Aspen to Eagle County when, the pilot later told authorities, his instruments \u201cwent haywire\u201d and indicated the plane\u2019s engine was stalling, Steindler said. The pilot, 50-year-old Tyler Noel of Verona, Wisconsin, later said he didn\u2019t think the plane was actually stalling, though he only had seconds to decide whether to deploy the plane\u2019s parachute, which he did, he said.<\/p>\n

The plane \u2014 which also was carrying Noel\u2019s 49-year-old wife, Kristina \u2014 came down deep in the forest on a heavily wooded, long, steep mountainside, Steindler said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t emphasize enough how steep it was,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The tower at the Aspen-Pitkin County airport notified emergency dispatchers of the crash at 3:25 p.m., which it said was about 5 miles north of Aspen in the Woody Creek area, according to a Sheriff\u2019s Office news release. The Noels reported they were uninjured and sheltering inside the plane, though they were not equipped to spend the night in that condition, the release states.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rescuers reported that the aircraft was lodged on a very steep slope amidst a forest of pine trees,\u201d according to the release.<\/p>\n

The airplane\u2019s parachute was tangled in the trees above the plane and was holding the aircraft in place and keeping it from sliding down the slope, Steindler said.<\/p>\n

Rescuers, however, were able to extricate the couple, who were cold and suffering from wet gloves, from the plane without any issues. Mountain Rescue volunteers brought extra clothes, snowshoes, food and water for the Noels, then guided them out of the wilderness starting about 9:15 p.m., Steindler said.<\/p>\n

The hike out took about three hours, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very difficult for Mountain Rescue just getting there, then getting back out again,\u201d Steindler said.<\/p>\n

A message left Tuesday for the Noels seeking comment was not returned.<\/p>\n

Cirrus airplanes are apparently one of the few that feature a parachute. The so-called \u201cballistic recovery system\u201d was developed by BRS Aerospace and comes standard on Cirrus planes, according to BRS website.<\/p>\n

The system has saved 422 lives to date, according to the BRS site.<\/p>\n

jauslander@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A plane that crashed Monday near Lenado is held in place on a steep slope by its parachute.Provided By the time Mountain Rescue Aspen volunteers made it within a half-mile of a small plane crash Monday evening near Lenado, it was pitch dark, snowing heavily and the wind was blowing hard. Seven teams of rescuers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2453834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 18:41:52","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2453834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2453834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2453834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2453834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2453834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}