Feds Plan Limited Probe of Wrestler's Crash

Since all three passengers escaped without injury, the National Transportation Safety Board plans to limit its investigation into the Lake Powell plane crash Saturday that added to the lore of Olympic wrestler Rulon Gardner's ability to survive brushes with disaster.

National Park Service personnel, meanwhile, are trying to determine where the small plane settled in the submerged canyon, perhaps 200 feet below the surface of Lake Powell - and trying to figure how to get it out.

"We're still interested in recovering the airplane and accomplishing that somehow," Glen Canyon National Recreation Area spokesman Kevin Schneider said Monday. "We don't know how we're going to do that precisely. We probably need to have somebody from the outside do it. And we have to figure out whose [financial] responsibility it is."

Environmental considerations are driving the push to locate the plane, a Cirrus SR 22 that was piloted by Gardner's friend, Randy Brooks, owner of the American Fork-based company, Barnes Bullets.

"The plane, I'm sure, has fuel and oil on board," said Schneider. "We don't want those getting into the lake."

But before that can be accomplished, the plane has to be found in the depths of the reservoir's Good Hope Bay. Schneider said Lake Powell is more than 200 feet deep in that area, and the ground below features plateaus ripped by irregularly shaped canyons cut through the eons by the Colorado River.

Jim Struhsaker, senior air safety investigator in the National Transportation Safety Board's office in Seattle, said he has spoken to Brooks about the crash and is not particularly interested in the recovery of the plane.

"It's in deep water. I'm not going to try to get it out. That's between the Park [Service] and the insurance company to decide what to do there," he said.

"I'll interview all the occupants of the plane. They're cooperating. I think we'll get sufficient information," Struhsaker added. "We do have drama because they went through a tremendous experience to survive. But because we don't have injured [people], it will be a limited investigation."

Schneider said there is no evidence to suggest Gardner, who is trying to earn a pilot's license, was at the controls when the plane went down. He added that the National Park Service does not have any regulations on flight altitudes above Lake Powell.

"We have a voluntary advisory about flight levels," Schneider said. "It's legal to land an airplane on Lake Powell. It's very rare. You can't land normally. But within Glen Canyon [National Recreation Area], it is possible to land a plane on Lake Powell."

Brooks told The Salt Lake Tribune on Sunday that he was flying low over the lake about 2:30 p.m. when "I just got too close to the water and went in. There was nothing wrong with the airplane or anything. I just screwed up."

At impact, "the plane went from 150 mph to none in about two seconds," Gardner told CNN on Monday morning before flying to Boston for a speaking engagement. "Within about a half a second is when we knew that things went from a beautiful day, a beautiful afternoon, all the way to a pretty bad situation."

Gardner, Brooks and a second passenger, Brooks' brother Leslie, swam a couple of hundred yards to shore. That was quite an undertaking for Gardner, a heavyweight wrestler who won a gold medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2000 Sydney Olympics and added a bronze in Athens in 2004.

"I said 'Don't leave me. Come back and get me,' " Gardner told CNN. "They said, 'Hey, just relax. Calm down. We're not leaving you. Get on your back and start doing basically backstroke.' "

After reaching safety, the trio tried to dry their clothes as much as possible on the rocky terrain before the sun went down and temperatures dipped into the 20s. They then huddled together to stay warm until morning, when passing boaters came to their rescue.

The cold water and overnight exposure left the three men with hypothermia injuries to their feet.

Five years ago, Gardner's feet were frostbitten and one toe amputated when he spent a night in the frigid Wyoming mountains after his snowmobile got stuck in deep snow.

He also has survived a collision with a car while riding his motorcycle, and accidentally puncturing his belly with an arrow as a boy.

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* The Associated Press contributed to this article.

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