Divers set cables on sunken plane that carried wrestler

Divers attached cables to the airplane that dumped Olympic wrestler Rulon Gardner into Lake Powell after finding it in one piece Tuesday, standing on its nose at a depth of 115 feet.

A salvage crew was ready to winch the small high-performance plane to the surface in a remote bay of the 186-mile reservoir that straddles Utah and Arizona.

The National Park Service, concerned about pollution from oil and gas, ordered the removal, which will be paid for by the pilot's insurer.

"The bottom of the aircraft is roughed up, but it's in one piece, standing up on its nose," salvage expert James L. Cross said by satellite phone aboard a catamaran in Good Hope Bay.

The Cirrus SR22 has an emergency parachute "that could cause us some grief" if it opens, said Cross, owner of American Fork, Utah-based Marine Projects Consulting Co. and Cross International Search and Recovery.

After raising the aircraft by Tuesday afternoon and hoisting it aboard his vessel, Cross said he planned to motor 28 miles to the nearest boat launch at Hall's Crossing.

The Feb. 24 crash stranded Gardner, 35, and two other men on a remote shoreline.

The pilot, Randy Brooks, was flying low over Lake Powell when the plane suddenly dipped and clipped the water's surface. It came to an abrupt stop and began sinking.

The three survived the crash with only bumps and bruises and managed to swim more than an hour in 44-degree water. After a night without fire or shelter, they flagged down a fisherman on a boat the next morning.

Gardner captured a gold medal at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Two years later, he was stranded for a night by his snowmobile in subzero temperatures in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, about 15 miles from his hometown of Afton, Wyo.

He slipped into an icy creek several times, and his body temperature fell to 88 degrees. Gardner lost a toe to frostbite but survived.

Then, two years later, he survived a serious motorcycle accident in Wyoming.

Only a handful of divers in Utah are qualified to work in water 115 feet deep, where they risk deadly decompression dangers after just 20 minutes. And spring runoff is turning Lake Powell muddy, reducing visibility.