Two Men Survive Crash in Alaska Wilderness

Two church workers were found by searchers after their single-engine Aero Commander crashed into a snowy mountain.

A helicopter rescue crew spotted Pilot Jim Bingman, 69, and passenger Gavin Thompson, 54, Friday morning, a day after the crash, waving clothing and jumping up and down. The two had walked away from the crash and spent the night in a makeshift shelter more than a mile (1.6 kilometer) away.

The plane went down above tree line on a mountain about 10 miles (16 kilometers) west of Manokotak, a village in the Togiak National Wildlife Refuge.

Bingman and Thompson, a South African who moved to Dillingham less than a year ago from New Zealand, had been building a Seventh-day Adventist church in Togiak and had left Thursday afternoon on a planned 45-minute flight to Dillingham, Alaska.

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