HELENA — Lewis & Clark County Sheriff/Coroner Leo Dutton has released the identity of one of the victims of a plane crash that happened west of Augusta on Thursday, August 8, 2024.
The site of the Cessna 182 plane crash was discovered in the Scapegoat Wilderness in the area of Crown Mountain and reported by two people who saw it.
The bodies of the three victims were recovered from the crash site on Friday evening and taken to the state lab in Missoula.
On Monday, Sheriff Dutton identified one of them as 46-year-old Donald Long of Gaston, Oregon.
The medical examiner will release the official cause and manner of the man's death at a later date.
The names of the other two victims will be released once DNA testing is complete.
According to KATU News in Oregon, Long and the other two people on the plane were flying to Montana to attend the rally of former President Trump in Bozeman on Friday evening.
The National Transportation Safety Board is leading the investigation into the cause of the crash.
