Gene Ebell saw treetops and knew he was in trouble.

Ebell, an insurance agent in Fresno, was a passenger on a flight to Elko, Nev. He was headed to pick up the body of his uncle, who had recently died.

But over the stormy Sierra, Ebell watched ice build on the wings of the single-engine plane.

The Cessna lost altitude, clipped several trees and crashed almost upside down.

The pilot was dead. But Ebell, 34, and 17-year-old high school student Robert Starr lived through the accident.

It was Jan. 11, 1970. Over the next 15 days, Ebell and Starr survived an incredible ordeal. And those close to them demonstrated the power of friends, family and faith.

Searching for lost friends

Back in Fresno, Bob Thomas heard chatter about a missing plane carrying his friend, Ebell.

Thomas, then a circulation district manager for The Fresno Bee, met Ebell when both worked at the newspaper in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Ebell bought Thomas his first beer; they were poker buddies.

Now Thomas was worried. He and a few other friends decided to help look for their friend.

Glenn Noble walked away from a job at a box factory. John Norton's boss at a local grocery store told him to take as much time as he needed.

Said Norton: "There's not many people in your lifetime that you would do that for. ... But it was something that you thought you had to do."

Ebell's friends headed to Jackson, east of Sacramento in the northern Sierra.

Authorities believed the plane crashed 40 or 50 miles from the small town based on its flight path and last radio transmission.

Naively, Thomas thought they'd find Ebell and be back to work the next day.

Poor weather hampered both ground and air searches. Days dragged on with no success. Some local officials were pessimistic.

"We'll find them when the snow melts," Thomas was told.

For friends and relatives of all three missing men, that wasn't good enough. Some had no confidence in the official search; Thomas simply didn't believe local authorities were looking at all.

The volunteers from Fresno crafted their own plans.

Crash in the Sierra

Starr, a student pilot, was just along for the ride that day. The McLane High School senior dressed in slacks, shirt and tie to look professional as he rode alongside the pilot, Donald Shaver.

Starr watched as the plane became little more than "a flying ice cube" over the Sierra.

The Cessna was at an altitude of 12,000 feet -- about 1,000 feet below the minimum federal safety standard for the area. The plane dropped another 4,000 feet as the pilot turned back.

Like Ebell, Starr could see treetops. Then, a ridge materialized from a cloudbank.

The plane hit four trees as it crashed into the ground. Starr smashed into the instrument panel, gouging his face and left eye. He crawled out the broken windshield.

In the back, Ebell hung upside down from his passenger seat. He released his seatbelt and dropped to the bottom of the plane.

Ebell coughed up blood; his chest and abdomen ached. He crawled out of the plane, but Starr helped him back in.

Neither was dressed for snow. There was no food on the flight.

All they had were their wits.

Hampered by weather

From Jackson, authorities outlined a search area. News accounts said the pilot radioed an alarm near Echo Summit in El Dorado County; officials focused on territory roughly around the El Dorado/Amador County line.

But Thomas and others developed a slightly different plan based on radar reports showing the plane might have disappeared close to Highway 88. The group pinned a map to a motel room wall and concentrated on 20 or 30 miles along the highway.