CRESCENT, Ore. -- Two men whose plane went down in a rugged part of the Cascade Range were rescued Tuesday after spending a cold night in the mountains.

The two were treated by rescuers who reached them on snowshoes shortly after dawn. Then they were hoisted aboard a pair of Oregon Army National Guard Blackhawk helicopters and flown to a Bend hospital, where they were reported in stable, fair condition. One of the choppers experienced engine failure on way to the hospital and made an emergency landing in Bend, where an ambulance one of the crash victims the rest of the way to the hospital.

KGW photo

Crash scene

Justin Hall, 24, of Portland, the pilot of the single-engine 1968 Piper Archer, and Josh Stohr, 21, of Eugene, had taken off from Eugene on Monday, said Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger.

He said they were going to fly by the Crescent Lake airport on the eastern slope of the Cascades but developed engine trouble flying at low altitude down a valley.

"That rough-running engine got worse, and they ended up crashing into some very thick timber and deep snow," said Evinger. "The airplane was a complete loss, including a wing ripped off it. Rescuers commented that it was miraculous that anybody survived the accident."

Both men suffered facial cuts, and Hall hurt his back and may have been unconscious for some time, Evinger said.

A passing civilian jet received a distress call after the crash, and a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellite began picking up transmissions from the plane's emergency locator beacon Monday night, Evinger said.

But, he said, it was tough to pinpoint the location.

The initial satellite transmissions were hundreds of miles apart, but after they gradually consolidated a position, Evinger said he called for a National Guard OH-58 Kiowa helicopter equipped with an infrared sensor to search in the dark. It found the crash site west of Odell Lake and was able to drop survival gear.

Based on Global Positioning System coordinates relayed from the helicopter, 14 rescuers on snowmobiles made their way to the site, and had to walk the last bit of rugged terrain on snowshoes, Evinger said.

Evinger said lessons learned from the search last December for the Kim family of San Francisco deep in the Rogue River Canyon contributed to smooth coordination among the State Police, the Guard and search and rescue teams from Klamath, Deschutes, Lane and Jackson County.