HELENA — Lewis and Clark County Sheriff/Coroner Leo Dutton has released the identity of one of the victims of a plane crash west of Augusta.
One of the victims was positively identified as 44-year-old Donald Long from Bend, Oregon.
The medical examiner will officially release the cause and manner at a later date. The remaining two victims are awaiting identification through DNA testing.
The site of a Cessna 182 plane crash was discovered in the Scapegoat Wilderness in the area of Crown Mountain on Aug. 8, 2024.
Three bodies were recovered from the site and transported to the State Crime Lab in Missoula for autopsy.
According to Dutton, the aircraft was traveling from Pullman, WA, to Great Falls when it went off the radar screen.
Around that same time, two people near the crash site saw it and called in the scene. The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation into what could have caused the crash.
