David Scott Partlow Vanished While Paragliding
David Scott Partlow, age 29, vanished on May 8th–9th, 1987 while paragliding from Blaine Mountain, northeast of Kalispell, Montana. He and three friends launched together, but strong winds pushed David off course and to the north, away from the others.
According to his brother Tim:
“His glider wasn’t made for extreme conditions and he got sucked up. His friends watched him turn into a little speck in the sky.”
That was the last time anyone saw him.
The Search
Over the next two days, 80 searchers and two helicopters combed the mountains. Weather conditions were brutal — high winds, snow, and freezing temperatures. On May 13th, the search was suspended.
Undersheriff Gary Franklin told the Daily Inter Lake on May 12th, 1987:
“We felt if he would have survived in that, we would have found him by now.”
At that point, no one knew whether David had crashed, landed safely, or was still airborne somewhere in the backcountry.
The Glider Is Found
Several weeks later, a pilot spotted something reflective on the east side of Columbia Mountain in the Flathead National Forest — roughly seven miles north of the launch site.
It was David’s hang glider, intact and sitting in a clearing surrounded by dense brush.
The condition of the glider suggested a controlled landing, not a crash.
Nearby, searchers found:
- David’s backpack
- some supplies
- his parachute, deployed — possibly used as a blanket or shelter
The snow on the ground was deep, but there was no sign of David.
Further down the mountain, searchers found:
- pieces of a down vest
- a sock
Both were believed to belong to David.
But no body. No tracks. No further evidence.
Declared Dead — But Never Found
David Scott Partlow was officially declared dead in 2019, more than three decades after he vanished. His remains have never been recovered.
He made it to the ground. He survived the landing. He left his glider, his pack, and his supplies behind.
And then he simply disappeared.
Vanished.us Says
This is one of those cases where the wilderness gives you just enough evidence to prove the person survived — and then nothing else.
A controlled landing. A deployed parachute. A backpack. Clothing fragments. And then silence.
No body. No trail. No explanation.
David Partlow walked away from his glider in deep snow and vanished into the Flathead backcountry. Whether he became disoriented, injured, hypothermic, or encountered something else entirely, we’ll likely never know.
What we do know is this:
He made it down alive. And then he was gone.