Accident Overview
A dual instructional flight, conducted with a certificated flight instructor and a student pilot aboard, was intended as a final opportunity for the student to refine skills before a private pilot checkride. After departing from Felts Field, air traffic control radar tracked the aircraft via a 1200 beacon code to the vicinity of an abandoned backcountry airstrip known as Horse Haven (or Horse Heaven) in the Idaho Panhandle National Forest, northeast of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho.
Witness Reports and Search Efforts
Witnesses reported seeing a small aircraft perform a low pass over Horse Haven and then depart northward, around the time the 1200 beacon code disappeared from radar. No further sightings of the aircraft occurred. When the flight did not return, a search was initiated. After 11 days without locating the missing aircraft, search operations were suspended.
Discovery and Investigation
The aircraft remained missing for two years until a U.S. Forest Service employee, performing routine duties in the area, discovered it by chance. The crash site was located in a draw approximately 2 miles north-northeast of Horse Haven and about 600 vertical feet above it, within densely forested, mountainous terrain.
Wreckage Examination
An on-site investigation revealed wreckage and impact signatures consistent with a relatively low-speed, near-vertical descent into trees and terrain. No evidence of any pre-impact aircraft or engine problems was found.