Associated Press
DECATUR ISLAND — A small plane crashed shortly after taking off from this island in the San Juans, killing the pilot and both passengers.
The pilot was identified as Michael James Laird, 56, of Graham, and the passengers were identified as Darron Scott Ramex, 37, of Anacortes and Brett Evans, 39, of Coupeville, said Tom Eades, a duty dispatcher with the San Juan County Sheriff’s Department.
The five-seat West Isle Air Cessna 172 went down in a wooded area at 1:35 p.m. Wednesday about 175 yards northwest of the airport, said Mike O’Connor, a Federal Aviation Administration regional duty officer.
A man working nearby pulled one of the men from the wreckage and attempted CPR, sheriff’s deputies said. All three of those in the plane were dead by the time Coast Guard emergency personnel were flown to the site.
The National Transportation Safety Board was investigating.
The pilot was on the last leg of a charter trip back to West Isle Air’s base in Anacortes and both passengers were contractors in Anacortes, company vice president Dave Ross said.
The pilot, one of 25 employees of the flight company, was "one of our more experienced guys, and he was with us for about three years," Ross said. "It’s a close-knit group and the pilot was well-liked."
He said the company had not experienced "a serious accident like this before."
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