The U.S. Forest Service’s Deadliest Aviation Disaster: Nez Perce National Forest

In June 1979, a group of U.S. Forest Service employees and volunteers

boarded a routine flight into the remote Idaho backcountry to begin

another summer season at the Moose Creek Ranger District. They never

arrived. When both engines of their DC-3 failed over the narrow Selway

River canyon, the pilots fought to keep the powerless aircraft in the

air as the passengers prepared for the worst. What followed was a

remarkable story of survival, an enormous wilderness rescue effort, and

an investigation that uncovered the failures behind the deadliest

aviation disaster in U.S. Forest Service history.

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