An investigator with the National Transportation Safety Board says a California pilot hit power lines and smashed his aircraft into a canyon before he came crashing down into the Colorado River.
Air Safety Investigator Aaron Sauer said Thursday that 59-year-old Guy Buchanan was on his way home from Wisconsin when his fixed wing, experimental plane flew into power lines that criss-cross the canyon on Tuesday.
The Daily Sentinel reports rafters found Buchanan bloodied, but coherent in the Ruby-Horsethief section of the river.
Buchanan was taken to a hospital by a CareFlight helicopter. He was released on Wednesday.
Sauer says Buchanan had been in Wisconsin for the annual Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture conference in Oshkosh.
The board is waiting for wreckage to be removed from the water before launching an investigation.
