Seven bodies were found in the wreckage of a missing plane on Monday night that disappeared in the Cascade mountains. The plane was believed to be carrying 10 people, including nine Snohomish-based skydivers.
No survivors were reported, but search teams planned to resume combing through the area this morning. The names of the dead were not released late Monday.
The teams followed the smell of fuel to the crashed Cessna 208 Grand Caravan, said Tina Wilson of the Yakima Valley Office of Emergency Management.
Passengers’ family and friends waiting at the White Pass Lodge west of Yakima were notified the plane had been found, she said.
Search-and-rescue teams discovered the wreckage about 7:40 p.m., but the tail section was separated from the rest of the plane and was missing. The crews confirmed that it was the missing plane by its serial number.
Earlier in the day, the close-knit Northwest skydiving community anxiously waited for news about the skydivers and the missing plane.
“It’s a difficult time for a lot of people in this small community,” said Mike Murray of Lake Stevens, who knows five of the nine skydivers believed to be aboard the missing plane. Most are believed to be with Skydive Snohomish, a business based at Harvey Field.
“I made some jumps with some of those people less than 30 days ago,” Murray said, his voice breaking.
The skydivers were believed to be the only people onboard the plane. Friends and family were reluctant to confirm names of passengers on Monday, hoping that search-and-rescue teams would find their loved ones alive.
The Skydive Snohomish members, including some employees, were at a skydiving event near Boise, Idaho, over the weekend.
The group was scheduled to fly from a private airstrip in Star, Idaho, near Boise, to Shelton, in Mason County, on Sunday evening.
“Our concerns right now are for the folks onboard and for their families,” said Kandace Harvey, whose family owns Harvey Field.
The Cessna was being used to ferry the skydivers between Idaho and Washington, according to Keri Farrington, a manager at Kapowsin Air Sports of Shelton. The company owned the plane but was renting it to the event organizer, Skydive Boise, for use over the weekend.
The plane left Star about 7 p.m. Sunday but did not arrive in Shelton as scheduled, said Mike Fergus of the Federal Aviation Administration. The plane was past due at midnight, and authorities organized a search for it at 2 a.m., he said.
A search by air and ground crews for the plane began Monday morning in the rugged Cascade range near Mount Rainier.
Skydivers from throughout the Pacific Northwest were waiting for news.
“We’re very anxiously awaiting further information,” said Elaine Harvey, one of Skydive Snohomish’s owners, earlier in the day. She was keeping in touch with Yakima’s search-and-rescue crews and with family members of those believed to be aboard.
“We’re hopeful and at the same time devastated by the news,” she said.
Murray, a skydiving instructor and a safety and training adviser for the United States Parachute Association, recently helped start Northwest SkyDivers, a club based at Barker Field in Mount Vernon. Most of the jumpers who skydive at that airport have jumped for years at Harvey Field, he said.
“It’s a family, it’s a big family,” he said. “We’re hoping for the best.”
Idaho skydiver Tom Erlebach told the Idaho Statesman he knows people in the Snohomish group who arrived Friday night to jump all day Saturday and Sunday. Many of them were college students, he said.
If the plane did crash, Erlebach said that the skydivers were unlikely to have had their equipment available.
“A lot of times when they’ve jumped all weekend, they take their chutes off and sleep on them,” he said.
Kapowsin Air Sports, a family-owned company that is more than 60 years old, has never lost a plane, said Geoff Farrington, Kapowsin’s co-owner.
The missing Cessna also had never experienced mechanical problems, he said.
“We’ve been around a long time,” an emotional Farrington said, describing the people onboard as acquaintances. “(Skydiving) is a small community.”
A hunter in the White Pass area told police he saw a plane flying low and heard a crash around 8 p.m. Sunday.
Marvel said the search area had been narrowed to southwest of Rimrock Lake, about 30 miles west of Yakima, due to the hunter’s report and radar information. The Transportation Department was coordinating the air search, while Yakima County Search and Rescue was coordinating the ground operation. About 50 people were involved in the search, she said.
Officials said the plane’s emergency locator was not activated.
The Cessna 208 Grand Caravan is considered a workhorse-type plane, Fergus said.
“It’s got a good track record. It’s been around a long time,” he said.
Idaho Statesman reporter Bethann Stewart and Herald reporter David Chircop contributed to this story. Bill Sheets: 4525-339-3439 or sheets@heraldnet.com.
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