UPDATED: Pilot in plane crash attended BHS

Bigfork Eagle and Northwest Montana News Network

A former Bigfork High School student was among those killed in a plane crash southwest of Dixon.

Sonny Kless, 25, was the pilot of the light plane with three passengers that went missing Sunday, June 27. The wreckage of the plane was spotted June 30 in rough terrain just inside the Sanders County line. There were no survivors.

Kless attended Bigfork schools, including his freshman year at Bigfork High School. According to the 2000 LeLac yearbook, he was a member of the golf team and the choir as well as the speech, drama and debate team his freshman year.

BHS teacher Mary Sullivan, who knew Kless as his speech coach as well as a classmate of her daughter, Maureen, remembers Kless for his creative energy.

“It’s such a tragedy,” Sullivan said. “Sonny was a remarkable student in a remarkable class. He was a gifted and talented student, full of energy and new ideas. He had huge dramatic skills.”

Sullivan recalled Kless joining her daughter’s class in late elementary school.

“After he arrived, it seemed like he had always been there,” Sullivan said.

Maureen Sullivan said she felt privileged to have known Kless.

“When he came into a room, his presence was overwhelming,” Sullivan said. “He could make you smile and laugh when no one else could. We should remember him by the fact that he was fun and that’s what he wanted for all of us.”

Kless recently graduated from the University of Montana with a degree in environmental studies and communications and obtained his pilot’s license about a year ago.

Also on the plane were Daily Inter Lake reporters Erika Hoefer and Melissa Weaver and University of Montana law student Brian Williams. The plane left the Kalispell City Airport on Sunday for a scenic flight, allegedly over Glacier National Park. Federal Aviation Administration radar data later showed the airplane had traveled from Kalispell north along the Whitefish Range, entered airspace above Glacier National Park, then headed south along the Swan Mountain Range and flew across Flathead Lake to the National Bison Range, according to FAA officials.

Kless was flying a 1968 Piper Arrow rented out of Missoula. The blue-and-white, single-engine plane was last tracked by radar at about 300 feet above ground level west of the 18,500-acre bison range at Moiese.

The search and rescue efforts had been ongoing since their absence was reported June 28.

See Kless’ obituary on the Eagle’s obituary page under “Community.”