A Challis man who was raised in the Wood River Valley died Saturday, Aug. 27, in a plane crash near Challis.
Scott Brower, 44, the son of Hailey resident Ilene Turner and stepson of Chuck Turner, had grown up in Hailey and graduated from Wood River High School in 1979.
Robert C. Plummer, 54, the owner and pilot of the single-engine Piper PA-14, was also killed in the crash. Plummer was a resident of Challis.
According to Custer County Sheriff Tim Eikens, the plane went down at about 10 a.m. in the backcountry about 10 miles north of Challis. Eikens said the plane had taken off from the Challis airport and the two were scouting for big game animals.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the accident.
"Speculation is failure in the aircraft, but we just don't know what that is at this point," Eikens said.
The crash became apparent after the sheriff's office was notified of a forest fire in the Morgan Creek drainage. A Forest Service fire crew flew over the area and determined that the fire had been started by a downed plane.
A sheriff's deputy and deputy county coroner were flown in and hiked half a mile to the crash site. Brower and Plummer were pronounced dead at the scene.
The Sage Creek Fire, started by the accident, grew to 50 acres before it was contained Sunday.
An obituary for Brower appears on Page A16 of this week's print edition of the Idaho Mountain Express.