A small plane, piloted from Washington County to swiftly reach Bend, found itself earthbound prematurely on Wednesday due to engine failure. According to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office, the incident occurred southeast of Molalla around 2:27 p.m. The two souls aboard, a licensed pilot and their passenger, managed to walk away without injuries after the pilot enacted an impromptu landing on a nearby gravel road, close to Trout Creek and the North Fork of the Molalla River.
Fortune smiled—albeit askew—upon the pair, as a National Guard HH-60M Black Hawk helicopter was concurrently threading the sky overhead on a training mission. The @oregonnationalguard's Instagram post detailed how the crew, hearing the distress call, rapidly set to locate and then safely extract the duo from the crash site, delivering them to the waiting arms of Mulino Airport, as per the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office. The Sheriff's Deputies interviewed the occupants there, and additional officers were dispatched to guard and document the crash site.
The rented single-engine Cessna, which suffered discernible damage, is presently awaiting retrieval by the rental company. The Sheriff's Office has not yet released the names of those involved but confirmed that no other parties were injured in this incident.
