amazing plane crash

This took place up by Talkeetna. The photos were taken by an friend of mine who was out flying enjoying the beautiful weather and heard the mayday distress call over the radio. He happened to be in the area of the accident but couldn’t land because he didn’t have skis on his plane. Apparently the teetering plane attempted to land without testing the snow first or doing a flyby to see what was at the end of the landing path. There was 4-6-inches of crusted ice on top of the snow so the plane could not stop…it kept sliding until it slid off the top of the mountain. Instead of applying full power and taking off the pilot shut it down. Had it not hung up on the ledge it would have been a 4000 foot plunge to the bottom. Once the two guys and the pilot crawled out the pilot had to climb back in to call flight service and request a rescue since the ELT wasn’t accessible. 30 minutes later a plane with an ”experienced” pilot from Talkeetna rescue picked them up. They were going to attempt to retrieve the plane sometime today. All this for a day of back country skiing. I think I would rather stick to the chair lift.