Remnants of Stinger CEO's plane found on Swede Mountain

UPDATE: 5:49 p.m. The plane was located in William's Gulch, on top of Swede Mountain. The tail section of the plane, which housed the transmitter, was intact.

The rest of the plane was heavily damaged. No confirmation of bodies have been made.

UPDATE: 6:08 p.m. Libby Airport Manager Jaime Gagnier, went up in a small craft with Bill Caldwell of Kootenai Aviation on Wednesday afternoon but could not locate the wreckage because of heavy snowfall. National Transportation Security Board officials worked with Search and Rescue to find the wreckage. At this time, there are believed to be no survivors. 

Carl Douglas, CEO of Stinger Welding Inc., piloting his private aircraft, is believed to be lost on a mountainside near Libby. 

Douglas and one other person were believed to be on board.

   According to David Thompson Search & Rescue officials, the plane's GPS beacon was last monitored at 5,900 feet late Tuesday evening at a location three miles southeast of Champion Haul Road. 

  The plane, a twin-engine Beechcraft King Air, capable of 325 knots, was due to arrive at Libby Area Airport later Tuesday evening, but did not arrive.

   Stinger officials, expecting Douglas for a meeting Wednesday morning, initially suspected his car had gone off the road after arriving at the airport. 

   However, when they contacted the airport, Douglas' plane was not in the hangar, and that initiated the search. 

   Reportedly, law officials heard a plane circling above the Libby clay banks, but no plane landed at the airport during the night.

   Shannon Myslicki, of 232 Pinewood Lane which is located below Swede Mountain, said she turned her television off at midnight Tuesday and heard the plane right over her house.

   “I just let the dogs out, and I hear this loud noise and then I see the lights,” Myslicki said referring to aircraft lights. “Usually, it’s trucks out on the road, but this was a plane. It was low. We heard it once and then heard it again later. It sounded like it was closer to Swede Mountain to the left, rather than the airport.”

   Rescue workers, who began their search where the GPS beacon last reported, moved their search later Wednesday, according to Lincoln County Sheriff Roby Bowe.

   "We have been up in the Swede Mountain area. We fanned out, but we are going to regroup. We are still looking and chasing down that beacon,” Bowe said.

   Stinger is a bridge and span builder that has a manufacturing branch in Libby.

   Douglas has been President and CEO of Stinger since its founding in July 1996.

   Stinger Welding was given $17 million from an economic development group to help expand to Libby in July 2011. It had been hit with a federal tax lien recently.

Edit: 4:52 p.m., a message was left with Stinger's corporate headquarters in Coolidge, Ariz. It had not been returned.