made a video to tell her parents goodbye. mom, dad. i crashed my plane. i don t know if anyone will find me out here. and yet, here she is to tell the astonishing story of the day she crashed on a mountaintop in one of america s most isolated places and lived. oh, yeah, even just thinking about it just brings me back. at first, she knew nothing. and then, in a dazed recognition that she was alive and in terrible trouble. she had little food, no warm clothes, no blanket for the frigid night and no idea where she was. only that she must have messed up somehow. earlier in the day, when she first set out, everything had seemed so promising. i took off, and i m just so excited. and i didn t have any hitches going to powell or cody airport. her problems started in greybull, wyoming when she had a hard time finding the airport, tucked away behind a mountain range.
plane, and i don t know if i m going to be able to find me out here. and yet, here she is, to tell the astonishing story of the day she crashed on the mountain top and one of america s most isolated places, and lived. ah, yeah, thinking about it brings me back. at first she knew nothing and then in a dazed recognition she was alive, and in terrible trouble. little food, no warm clothes. no blanket for the frigid night and no idea where she was. only that she must have messed up somehow. earlier in the day, when she first set out, everything had seemed so promising. i took off, and i was so excited. i didn t have any hitches going to the powell or cody airport. her problems started in greybull, wyoming when she had a hard time finding the airport, tucked away behind the mountain range.
i used my gps and hold up google found my phone, trying to look for the airport, and i did find it, but it was about ten minutes just of looking for. reporter: she landed, ate lunch. refuelled. so i was kind of rushing myself to fuel up after getting out there, well, i wasted about 45 minutes here just eating and gassing up and everything. reporter: mckenzie texted her instructor bobbi to let her know she was ready for takeoff heading home. i was actually super excited for this leg of the trip. i would be over water the whole way. i had something to follow the whole way there. reporter: but somehow, just after takeoff, she transposed a zero in her gps directional setting. instead of going east she flew southwest and straight into some of the tallest peaks in the country. the absorica mountains in wyoming. that one simple zero made a huge difference. reporter: at first it looked okay. she followed the river as the plan said she should.
thing in and around billings, montana, since she was born. that is your ticket to what? anywhere i want to go. i fly it through canada. i fly it to mexico. you know, you get to see things that a lot of times, that other people never going to get to see. reporter: so when the girl showed up in flight school in nearby laurel in august 2013 brimming with confidence, bobbi jumped right in. she could see right away mckenzie was a natural. like when she put her in frosted goggles and asked to fly by instruments only. i put her in situation where is she couldn t see out the window and i d say, mckenzie, where s the airport? and she d shock me. because she could point. holy smokes. reporter: so when the time came for mckenzie to fly solo, bobbi didn t worry. how did she do in that first solo flight?
almost to the airport. after i get out of this curve, right on my left side. i can just land and calm down, and then i ll be able to go home and relax. reporter: not quite. around that curve and it s a dead end with mountains on all sides of me, and my heart dropped. reporter: mckenzie had flown straight into a box canyon. mountains towering on all sides. she was trapped, and then weirdly her desperate eye caught something other wordily. out of my peripheral vision i see all this movement. there s a huge herd of elk. 200 head of them. reporter: saw you come along? they heard me and got scared. reporter: and then a warning blared, she was about to stall. her only chance was to accelerate straight down, then pull up and make it over the peak. the ground is rushing at you at this point? exactly. at this point i knew i could possibly overcome the mountain in front of me.