our daughter chose to go up and fly in an airplane. she was always just driven to be perfect. >> my dad pulled up and said, mckenzie is missing. >> i am not ready to plan a funeral. >> a teenage girl, out to earn her pilot's license, sets off on a solo flight. >> she was well trained. she's capable. >> but something went wrong. >> i started thinking, she should be there by now. >> hours stretched on without any word. her parents, frantic. >> i had that eerie feeling -- the kind that you don't entertain as a parent. >> something wasn't right. >> mckenzie has vanished,

leaving behind empty skies and a terrible fear. had her plane gone down? some of the country's most dangerous terrain. >> there's mountain lions, coyotes. not somewhere you would want to see yourself, let alone a young girl. >> a search becomes a race against time. >> if it got dark, it would really add to the chance that she would end up dying out there. >> had a girl's dream turned de deadly? >> mom and dad i, crashed my plane. >> a treacherous journey leading to an astounding journey. >> what was that like to see? >> it was a shock. >> i'm lester holt and this is "dateline." here is keith morrison with "into the wild." ♪ >> there are places in the american west that quite rightly inspire fear, along with awe. like the wild haunts of grizzlies in wyoming's mountains. like the overconfident heart of

a precocious teenage girl. like the terrified love of a parent. the girl is gone. >> you have no control. you're in god's hands so to speak. it was miserable. >> but her? nobody thought it would happen to mckenzie morgan. >> you're just quiet because there's not a thing that we can do. >> hi. >> to mckenzie's parents, steve and christie, she was always exceptional. their super girl. >> mckenzie is the type of kid that started reading at 2, 2 1/2? speaking in sentences at a year and a half. >> she excelled in school, threw a wicked curveball and had a sixth sense for the outdoors, developed elk hunting with her dad. >> she was a great kid. >> but she was always wanting to go off and do the next thing. >> and the next thing. do it as good as you can. >> more than anything, mckenzie wanted to fly. frankly, that desire came

packaged in her genes. great grandfather, uncles like jared hanson, all pilots. mckenzie's uncle and grandpa got together. >> we talked and said if she wants to do it, let's help her out. >> her parents were fine with it, too. >> a lot of people would look at this and say, god, you really feel okay letting your daughter go off around fly an airplane at this age? >> i see kids and they don't communicate, they sit there and text. >> yeah. >> our daughter chose to go up and fly in an airplane. i was more scared of her driving than flying. >> when mckenzie was 17, her uncle loaned her his cessna 172 and her grandfather paid for flying lessons. her teacher had been doing this very thing in montana since mckenzie was born. >> that little thing is your ticket to what -- >> anywhere i want to go. i fly it to canada, i fly it to

mexico. you know, you get to see things that a lot of times that other people are never going to get to see. >> so, when the girl showed up at her flight school in nearby laurel in august of 2013, brimming with confidence, bobby jumped right in. she could see right away that mckenzie was a natural when she put her in frosted goggles and asked her to fly by instruments only. >> i put her in situations where she couldn't see out the window and i would say, mckenzie, where is the airport? and she would just shock me because she could point. i'm like, holy smokes. >> so when the time came for mckenzie to fly solo, bobby didn't worry. >> how did she do in that first solo flying? >> she did great. she did smawesome. >> it's a tradition to cut off the back of your t-shirt. her friend took the picture. her second solo went just as well. and then after three weeks of training, one last test

flight -- the big one. the cross-country solo. the faa insisted at least five hours over 150 nautical mires with stops in three different airports followed by three landings at a towered airport. in this case, billings, montana. a challenge, of course, but if mckenzie was confident, and she was, well, then so were her parents. >> it's not that she was just sent up in an airplane. she was well trained. she's capable. she was ready. >> and so, august 20th, mckenzie left home early and her proud mom took a picture. and then at the airport, she encountered a little push from fate. >> a b1 bomber crashed during a routine training mission. >> the day before a military plane went down nearby and the air space over the vast flat lands to the east was temporarily closed. they could have put off the test. they decided not to. >> because the weather was good

the winds aren't too strong, all the conditions you want to make sure they're good. yeah, we checked that very closely. >> so bobby and mckenzie plotted a modified trip with spots at little airports over the state line at wyoming. around 10:00 a.m., check is complete. mckenzie climbed into the cockpit. >> i wanted to give her a hug in the worst way, then i thought, i'll give her a hug on the day we finish all this because she's going to go, old people. but, i was confident, totally confident. >> 30 minutes in, mckenzie texted bobby from wyoming, first leg, complete. >> how did that go? >> that went well. she was headed to cody. >> cody, wyoming. after about 25 minutes, she landed there, texted bobby and her mother. said all was well. and then a second little push from fate. though none of them knew it, a huge forest fire erupted to the

west. smoke billowed towards mckenzie's revised flight path. for now, mckenzie was on her way to grable, wyoming. tiny airport, tucked behind a ridge, hard to see through the air, through the smoky haze, white knuckle landing. >> the message you got was that she wasn't -- it wasn't as easy this time. >> right. she let me know she got a little disoriented. she was going to go ahead and taxi over, tie the plane down, take a little break. >> she texted that she ate lunch, refueled, and because one runway was closed for repairs, she used an alternate run way, heading in a different direction. still, the last leg was the easiest. the flight plan called for her to follow the big horn river, make her landings at the billings airport and a final short flight back to laurel where bobby was waiting. >> of course, i'm excited. now we're really rolling. we don't have far to go here now. closer to home.

>> it was mid-afternoon now. mckenzie's mother hadn't heard from her for a while. and suddenly sensed something off. >> i had that eerie feeling, you know, the kind you don't entertain as a parent. >> her father driving to work, felt it too. >> something just wasn't right. an hour out of town, i turned around and came back. >> bobby expected to hear from her by 3:00 p.m. 3:00 p.m. came and went. she busied herself, stayed close to the phone -- and that went on, tick, tick, tick. >> yes. >> when did you start to worry? >> about 3:15. i started thinking, she should be there by now. >> bobby called the billings tower. no one had heard from mckenzie. >> you try to think the best. she's landed somewhere. she's safe. i'll hear from her. but nothing.

>> and this is what, 3:30, 3:40, 3:45. >> and about 3:50 i get a phone call from flight service station. they said your student is past due. i just want you to know. and in five seconds, we will declare her missing. worst words in the whole world. mckenzie morgan seems to have disappeared. for everyone who cares about her, it's the beginning of a heart-stopping odyssey. when we return, as a frantic search gets underway, there's more bad news. >> i asked her what the route was. and my heart just sank. this is the time of the year when the flu starts to spread. before the first sneeze, help protect with a spray. before the first tissue, help defend with a wipe. and help prevent with lysol. to get ten times more protection and kill 99.9%

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♪ bobby powers was living a flight instructor's worst nightmare. 17-year-old mckenzie morgan, that natural young flier and her special student, was just gone. >> you start thinking, what did i do wrong? did i miss something? i didn't want to admit this is real. >> but it was. no time for second guessing. >> i said, i'll be off the ground in 15 minutes.

i'll be looking for her. >> she climbed into her plane, taxied to the gas pump for fuel. the manager hurried over. >> and he said, we can't give you fuel. we are not allowing anyone to buy fuel right now. we need it for our operation. >> they were running low, said the manager. they have their own charter, and the firefighter operation to fuel. >> what did you say? >> i just looked him square in the eye and i said, i need fuel. and right now i would kill you for fuel. my girl is down. i will have fuel. and he got a big look on his face and he said, give her all the fuel she wants. just get her her fuel. >> while they were fuelling the plane, bobby got on the phone and began to organize a search party, friends, friends of friends. and in minutes, she and her husband were airborne. >> my husband said, you have to

call her parents. worst day of my life. and i did not want to do that. but i wasn't brave enough to call her mother because i'm a mother. so, i did the next best thing. i called her grandfather. >> the pilot. >> yes. and i said, mckenzie is missing. and he said, i will be in the airplane in 15 minutes. >> mckenzie's grandpa drove to where her uncle gerald was working. >> it was around 4:00 p.m., 4:30 p.m. and my dad pulled up. and said mckenzie is missing. sorry. >> and then finally they called mckenzie's mom, christie. >> what was that like to get that call? >> the bottom just kind of drops out. you know, you do, you go and have that tendency to go dark for a second and you think, i am

not ready to plan a funeral. >> they tried to stay positive. after all they told themselves, by now a posse of private pilots was taking off, making its way up in the air to look for her. one of the searchers was fraper, larry mayor. a 30--year-old flight veteran. >> i asked her what the route was. and, you know, to be honest with you, my heart sank. i knew the terrain along the route and it's not very good terrain. >> such bad terrain, in fact, that larry was carrying an emergency kit he packed in case he found her alive. >> i put together a sleeping bag, some bottles of water, some gra know la bars, a hand held radio and a large caliber handgun because it's grizzly country. >> there's mountain lions, there's coyotes. it's not where you would want to see yourself, let alone a young girl. >> brian was in her supercub. he's a graduate of bobby's

flight school and he and all the pilots knew what might be waiting out there. >> i think that every person that was in the air had worst-case scenarios playing through their minds. >> 5:00 p.m., mckenzie had been missing over an hour. counting bobby, her husband and her grandfather, there were nine small planes in the yar, scouring the ground. >> go over to 12275. >> 75. >> over the radio, they agreed to divide the miles and miles of southern montana and northern wyoming into a grid. >> everybody was looking everywhere. there were guys heading north and south, east and west. >> someone would say, i'm going to look in the basin. someone else would say, okay, i'm going to go look, you know, along the north rim of the canyon. >> your head is on a swivel. you're looking, looking, looking and hoping and praying you're going to find that person as quickly as you can. >> most of these pilots have been on searches before.

they've found plane wrecks, but rarely survivors. >> the whole time up there in the search thinking in the back of your mind thinking that was always a concern. >> they raced the clock, sun down was just a few hours away. >> stakes went way up if it got dark. if she had been injured and had not been found, it would just add -- really add to the chance that she would end up dying out there. coming up -- >> phone records provide the first clue to mckenzie's whereabouts. but will they help? >> i was like, well, that makes no sense. >> huh-uh. then, one of the search pilots catches sight of something on the ground. >> my first reaction was --

♪ mckenzie morgan's parents were frantic, waiting for word of their missing daughter. what could they do? >> i was like, well, let's ping the cell phone to see where she last made her call. >> they asked the police to pull her phone record. she last used her phone at 2:30, half an hour before she was due back in billings. after that, nothing. then they looked at the gps

coordinates of the call and -- oh, no. >> it was four miles, four or five miles south of cody. that makes no -- i couldn't -- in my head fathom -- i was like, well, that makes no sense. >> huh-uh. >> it's 180 degrees the wrong way. >> mckenzie was supposed to be here in billings air space, instead, the phone pinged south of cody, wyoming. up in the air, bobby heard the news and was alarmed. mckenzie was way too close to the mountains. >> how could she be there? i watched her flying skills. i was totally confident that there was just no way she would become this confused. >> mckenzie's uncle and grandfather moved their search to the area the ping came from. still, no sign of mckenzie. >> all right. we're on 1275. >> now a single searcher saw a clue anywhere. >> there's not an airplane

sitting at ft. smith, no, there's not an airport sitting at greybill. no, she didn't go back to cody. she hasn't arrived back in laurel. >> mckenzie's plane was equipped with an emergency beacon, an elt, they call it, which should go off in a crash. but there was no signal from any elt. so what did that make you think? >> that she's safe. if her elt was going off, they would pick up the signal. and we could find her. so, you're thinking, okay, this is a positive. >> unless, unless it hadn't gone off because of something very, very bad. >> not having it meant that the airplane had crashed very severely or was upside down or possibly burned. >> shadows lengthened in the

late afternoon. the smoky fire blurred the ground underneath them and mckenzie's family, all they had to hang on to was knowledge that the searchers wouldn't quit. >> was there solace in that? no. it was miserable. i'm not going to lie. >> up in the air, they kept looking. suddenly larry mayor spotted a crashed plane right beneath him. >> i guess i was just a little startled to be looking for an airplane and then see an airplane sitting there. >> brian saw it too. >> my first reaction of seeing an airplane down below is, oh my god, i found her. >> but, no, he hadn't. the wreckage was from a fatal crash larry covered for the papers years earlier -- but. >> it just adds more fuel to the fire. number one, you're running out of time. it's getting dark. this was probably what i'm going to find someplace up here. >> they fought to focus through the evening shadows. brian and his supercub equipped to fly low and slow skimmed the trees and rocky feet.

>> you get into a place called black canyon, which is, you know, vertical cliff walls and black timber down at the bottom of it that, you know, it's like finding a needle in the hay stack in there. >> by 8:00 p.m., mckenzie was five hours overdue, the rescue pilots were tired and running out of fuel and daylight. and then the authorities called. >> we have passed along the search and rescue process to the air force at this time. >> the military would take over, the man said. would send out a team in the morning. and in 30 minutes, bobby and her friends would be ordered out of the air. bobby had one last area to search, shell canyon in the big horn mountains. >> rough, rugged horrid terrain. out of all the wrong ways she could have gone, it would have been the worst. >> she combed shell canyon back and forth in the growing dark,

nothing. >> and all that time i kept thinking, why didn't i give her that hug? why didn't i give her that hug? i would have given anything to give her one hug. >> the setting sun in wyoming and montana could be a glorious thing. but that evening for nine discouraged pilots it was terrifying. but, of course, they were entirely unaware of the disaster and the drama they didn't see on the ground. coming up -- >> that ground was here. a forbidding back country, rife with danger. >> it puts that eerie feeling in your body makes the hair stand up in the back of your neck. >> but this hunter sees something smr troubling in the sky. >> the plane is flying right into a trap. >> yep. d me to sing how their holiday scent made me feel, which inspired this song. ♪ feel the air with joyful noise ♪

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nine small planes were about to give up their search for a missing teenage pilot, hope dying with the setting sun. >> we all looked until the last light, you know, the absolute last light. >> so, as the minutes tick by, the passage of time changes somehow, doesn't it? >> yes. >> yeah. it felt like days. >> but here, in the outskirts of a little place called douglas, wyoming, an outdoors man, named josh alexander was about to get roped into the same story. >> if you're given a choice of some way to spend two weeks, do whatever you want, what would bit? >> i would be in the mountains hunting somewhere. it's what i live for. >> josh's friend and colleague, nathan coil feels just the same way. >> i mean, there's places, yeah, you can go and not see people for days. >> those are kind of the sweet

spots for you? >> yeah, it's very relaxing, very calm, quiet. >> in august of 2013, josh and nate planned to spend a few days in one of those sweet spots, a place most of us will never see. these mountains in western wyoming. some of the most remote and spectacular mountains in the country. the purpose of the trip? to scout for big horned sheep. not easy. they live on jagged perches 10,000 feet up and more. they're like ghosts. there for a fleeting moment, then gone again. inhospitable country. >> it's steep, it's rugged, it's all rock. >> base camp was 9,000 feet up in an abandoned mining town, called kirwin. they saw five grizzly bears in the first day. >> makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck, you know. >> josh brought his horses, duke, the pal mee know and dirty

devil or double d, the stubborn one. the next day was august 20th. mckenzie morgan set off on her first solo cross-country flight. >> nate and josh were going up a rocky pathway to greybill pas. double d didn't like it. tried to turn and go home. and in his thrashing, slipped and tumbled down the rocky slope, dragging josh with him. >> i couldn't get kicked out of the strips fast enough. he went over and smashed my ankle and tore up his front leg also. >> the horse, cut its leg. josh, sprained his ankle. but -- give up, go home? no. way too tough for that. >> even though you're hurt like crazy and your horse is injured -- >> uh-huh. >> why? >> had to see what's on the other side. didn't ride all that way for nothing. >> so they pushed on.

about 300 yards to the top, miles and miles of vast isolation around them. in an average year, said park rangers, only one or two human beings ever set foot up here. >> very windy. and when we got on the top, it was probably 30, 45 miles per hour wind. >> howling around you. >> screaming. >> though the sights, like a herd of elk, 200 of them. >> i was standing up there watching them elk at the bottom and i looked at them for maybe two minutes. >> the sound of an airplane broke his concentration. it was a little plane, a cessna 172. >> just kept getting louder and louder and louder. first thing you thought is why are they down that low? >> the second thought was, alarm. that plane was surrounded by sheer mountain walls on all sides. >> so the plane is flying right into a trap. >> yep. >> flying right into a rock wall. >> they heard the plane throttle up, then watched it try to

accelerate up and over the lowest peak. >> but as soon as that plane cleared the top, the wind caught it and just jerked the right wing of that airplane straight up in the air and basically turned it straight around and sent it crashing to the ground. >> what's it like to see that? >> the first thing in your head is, man, i just watched a plane crash. and then it sinks in and hits. oh, i just watched a plane crash. and then thoughts start running through your head what are you going to do? >> who is in there? >> who is in there? how many are in there? are they alive? are they dead? can i safely get myself in there to find out or not? >> there's a cardinal rule of survival in the wilderness, stick together. they broke it. josh knew first aid, decided he should look for survivors. nate was good with gps coordinates. >> so, i gave nate the gps and the best horse i got and said,

you ride down to camp and get in the truck and go down to where you can call some help. >> but separating and then hurrying on that terrain was dangerous. the horses fought to stay together. >> fear was having that horse go down with nate and then nobody would be able to make it to get down and call for help. >> they slipped and slid. it took nate more than an hour to get to the top of the road. he got in his truck and began a frantic drive down the mountain to reach an area with cell service. >> as i was coming out, i come around this corner and there's a guy standing in the road waiving his hands. i was like, what in the world? >> the road was blocked by a smashed truck hanging halfway over the edge. nate helped the driver move his truck and went hurdling back down the mountain to get help. meanwhile, back at 12,000 feet, josh was a long half mile from the crash. >> i sat there and glassed that

plane for probably five minutes waiting to see if i could see movement in it or if anybody was going to crawl out of it or anything else. and nobody got out of it. so, i assumed the worst. >> and then, as he kept looking at it, something surprising happened. >> then i could see some movement at the plane. >> was it a person, an animal? too far away to see. he couldn't just hurry over. he had a sprained ankle, an injured horse. to get to that crumpled plane, he would have to go down first a steep, slippery slope. >> i had to walk the horse all the way down to the bottom, sinking in up to its knees in the dirt and rock. >> carefully, he coaxed the limping double d toward the plane. >> down all the switch backs and then bail off the trail and go down to the creek. >> he followed the creek bed and then -- as he worked his way toward the plane, something caught his eye and he looked up

and saw in the distance -- >> a girl walking in the creek. >> what was that like to see? >> it was a surprise. it was a shock. coming up -- >> mckenzie alive and telling us her story. >> i knew odds that i would survive that were very unlikely. >> when "dateline" continues. insurance. n r everybody knows that. well, did you know genies can be really literal? no. what is your wish? no...ok...a million bucks! oh no... geico. fifteen minutes could save you fifteen percent or more on car insurance. sometimes come out with spots? well, those spots are actually leftover food or detergent residue. can we help prevent this? yes, use finish jet dry. it goes in your dishwasher's dispenser to help eliminate

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mckenzie morgan was alive, though stumbling along near a mountain top in god knew where, she didn't expect to be for long. she was very, very alone up here, very cold and very scared. certain her life was over, she made a video to tell her parents good-bye. >> mom and dad, i crashed my plane, and i don't know if anyone will 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 in one of the america's most isolated places and lived. >> ah. yeah, just thinking about it just brings me back. >> at first, she knew nothing. 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 was just so excited. i didn't have any hitches going to powell or cody airport. >> her problem started in greybill, wyoming, when she had a hard time finding the airport, tucked away behind a mountain range. >> i used my gps and pulled up google or something on my phone, just trying to look for the airport. and i did find it, but it was about ten minutes just of looking for it. >> she landed, ate lunch, refueled. >> i was kind of rushing myself after i fueled up to get out of there. well, i wasted about 45 minutes here just eating and gassing up and everything. >> mckenzie texted her instructor bobby powers 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

there. >> somehow after takeoff, she trance posed a zero. instead of going northeast towards home, she flew southwest and straight into some of the tallest peaks in the country, the absorka mounts in wyoming. >> that one simple zero made a huge difference. >> at first it looked okay. she followed a river, as the plan said she should. >> i'm over water, i got to be going the right way. >> she was supposed to skirt a small mountain, sure enough, there was a peak, its top obscured from smoke from the forest fire. then it dawned on her with anxiety, she was flying too high. >> i was supposed to be flying at the height of 7,500 feet. it got to the point where i was flying at 8,500 -- >> and the mountains were still up there. >> still above me. >> mckenzie knew bobby wouldn't have sent her there, into the mountain. >> that's just not something she would do. something has to be wrong here. i go to try to call her. there's no service. >> she flew on, alone, no way to

call for help, forcing down the rising panic. she barely missed some very tall trees. and then -- >> finally it started to open up around me. there's more space and it's like, oh, thank goodness, i'm almost to the airport. after i get out of this curb, it will be on my left side. i can just land and calm down and then i'll be able to go home and relax. >> not quite. >> rounded that curve and it's a dead end with mountains on all sides of me. and my heart dropped. >> 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 worldly. >> out of my peripheral vision i saw something, there was a huge herd of elk, about 200 head of them. >> they saw you come along.

>> they heard me and got scared. >> 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. >> and the ground is rushing at you now. >> exactly. at this point i know that i could possibly overcome this mountain that's in front of me. >> and then a huge blast of wind caught a wing. >> and i know i'm going down. and while in my head i was thinking calmly, okay, i just got to land this like a typical landing. and i hear this screaming, just loud screaming and then i realize, oh my gosh, that's me. i didn't realize i was doing it. in my head, i'm totally calm, but i'm just screaming uncontrollably. >> she would have to pull off a perfect landing on a steep slope in a field of rock, impossible, but no choice. back wheels down first. >> as i brought my nose down, the front wheel got caught in the rocks and flipped the plane upside down. >> just like that. >> yep. like hit, touch and then just

flipped me. >> how long she was out, she isn't sure. but when she came to -- >> i'm hanging upside down. i'm like, why am i not dead right now? i'm not going to die in here. i said that outloud. i was so determined. >> that she was not killed in her upside down and totalled plane was little short of miraculous that she was virtually uninjured, even more so. she unbuckled herself, smashed through the front window, took these pictures. tried to text them. maybe the coordinates would help someone find her, but she could get no signal. they weren't going anywhere. so she tried to radio for help. >> 516, my plane is down. i'm in the mountains somewhere, can you find me? and there was no reply. i tried twice. >> she smelled gas near the plane. so, she made a risky decision, she would follow the creek and try to walk out. >> well, i've got to get out of

here before this catches on fire. >> it seems to me you had a pretty lousy chance of being found, but the only one chance really was if you were beside that plane? >> exactly. i knew i wasn't going -- the odds that i would make it and survive that trek were very unlikely. >> 12,000 feet above sea level, hundreds of miles from nowhere, utterly alone, she started walking. when she set out that morning, it had been a hot, summer day. she was wearing jeans and a light windbreaker. but here in the mountains, night could be bitter cold. she didn't know it, but she was heading down the creek bed right to the spot the hunters had seen five grizzly bears just the day before. >> so, at this point, i walked about 20 minutes and i made a video to my parents. >> mom and dad, i crashed my plane. >> it was awful. like, i'm crying and screaming. i just felt so bad. >> mckenzie morgan understood

with an awful clarity, this was very likely the end after all. coming up -- >> a mind-boggling coincidence becomes mckenzie's only shot at rescue. >> as soon as i saw him, i started screaming. help me! help me! help me! and then her flight instructor starts to worry all over again. >> i heard one of my friends say, has anybody let bobby know yet? i was like, oh my god.

♪ mom and dad, i crashed my plane. >> mckenzie morgan had just made a good-bye video on her phone to tell her parents one last time, as she faced her death up here, that she loved them. ♪ >> my plan was just walk until i couldn't walk anymore and maybe if i got low enough, i could climb a tree and sleep in that.

or just, make a spot on the ground for myself. >> she kept walking. she had sprained her knee in the crash. it slowed her down. >> it was starting to swell. i was just limping a lot. there were rocks everywhere, and i kept stumbling over those. >> in the depths of her despair -- >> i get on the top of one of these hills and i see this horse. and i was like, there's a horse out here. >> and then she saw there was a man with the horse, a kind of scary man, big, bloodied from his fall, wearing a gun. the hunter, josh alexander. >> as soon as i saw him, i started screaming. help me! help me! help me! >> i immediately made her sit down and gather her thoughts and everything, because her adrenaline was rushing. >> yeah. >> big time. >> was she clearly upset. >> oh, yeah. >> yeah. >> i started asking her her name, her age, where she's from, where she was flying to, where

she come from? just mainly trying to check for head injury. you know, make sure everything was okay. >> sure. what were the chances? in all that empty space, so rarely visited by humans, it was almost beyond mathematical calculation, like two needles finding each other in a very big hay stack. >> i asked him where i was? he's like, well, you're in matetsie, wyoming. i don't know where that is. >> they looked at a map. it wasn't even on it. so this unlikely trio, a banged up hunter, a banged up pilot, and a banged up horse limped down the treacherous mountain side in the gathering dark, not knowing what would be waiting for them at the bottom when finally -- >> then it was right at dark, but i could still see through my binoculars, i looked in the trail head parking lot and spotted a sheriff's deputy's pickup and nate standing there. they were looking back at us. >> after his long interrupted

trip down the mountain to get help, josh's buddy nate had made it. >> i told her, i said we'll be all right. right there is help. then she got real emotional again -- >> and started to cry. >> yeah. i think it was tears of relief. >> and nate, watching them, had trouble understanding what he was seeing. this young girl was the pilot? >> i couldn't believe it. most people her age don't even drive yet. i mean, let alone fly a plane. >> the sheriff brought mckenzie down to an ambulance that hadn't been able to make it up the mountain. as soon as there was cell service, the sheriff called mckenzie's parents, steve and christie, sick with worry at home. >> thank goodness for that call. >> he said we found your daughter and she's alive. and then i lost service with him or it broke out. and i said, all right, get your stuff, christie. we're going to cody. >> mckenzie's flight instructor

bobby was at that moment about to turn up, turn home heartbroken. when on her radio she heard something rather terrifying. >> i heard one of my friends say, has anybody let bobby know yet? i was like, oh my god. >> let bobby know what? >> and i said, i'm on. what's going on? and they said, they found her. she's safe. what a relief. i just started crying. >> bobby, too, headed straight to cody. >> i couldn't get there fast enough. >> mckenzie's uncle and grandfather flew there, too. >> that was the best moment we could have had that she was found and healthy. >> larry mayor took this photograph, search planes headed home, silhouetted against a smoky sunset to mark the moment. >> it was an unbelievable feeling. >> and then, roughly 12 hours after she took off that morning, mckenzie, her family, and her

flight instructor were all at the hospital together and safe. >> i think until you lay eyes on her and you see that she's just fine, i mean, it was beautiful. >> bobby got to give mckenzie that hug after all. >> i call her my miracle child. lot of people said to her, she should go buy a lottery ticket. >> her grateful parents were able to drive mckenzie home later that night. on the way, she showed them the good-bye video she made on the mountain. >> i don't know if anyone will be able to find me out here. >> i was like, don't play that again. i almost went off the road. >> the next day, the hunters headed home. and enkoucountered yet another person who needed help. a man who slipped on wet rocks and broken his leg badly. they made a third rescue in just two days. you're just angels of mercy on that trip.

>> mad turn of events there. we never seen one big horned sheep that entire trip. but we decided we were there for a reason. it was there to help people. why? i don't know. but everything turned out good. >> you must be a person with a sense of gratitude these days? >> yep, definitely am. because everyone is like, well, somebody has a plan for you. like, you know what, you're right. you're right. so, i'll make the most of it. >> mckenzie, by the way, finished high school and the softball season, got into college, went to prom. and in december, 2013 -- >> all right, honey. >> bye. >> bye. >> okay. >> she climbed into a little airplane to finish that solo cross-country flight. mckenzie morgan, survivor and

licensed pilot. that's all for now. i'm lester holt. thanks for joining us. this sunday, what appears to be another beheading of an american by isis. the victim is apparently peter kasich, a former aid worker. the gloves are off, again. >> what i'm not going to is wait. >> a president no longer constrained by another election. on the other side, triumphant republicans. at stake, two huge issues, immigration and healthcare. >> we're going to fight the president tooth and nail. president obama prepares to bypass congress. >> it's overdue. >> how will republicans respond? also, will republicans fl