5 in plane bound for Wenatchee confirmed dead

ALTURAS, Calif. – Rescuers found no survivors in a downed plane headed for Wenatchee that had been missing since Wednesday with five people on board, a spokesman for the company that owned the aircraft said Friday.

“They are retrieving the bodies as we speak,” said Dave Weintraub, chief pilot for Commander Northwest, an East Wenatchee company that provides planes and pilots for hire.

The plane, a twin-engine Aero Commander, left Reno, Nev., on Wednesday morning en route to Wenatchee. It was spotted by air traffic control radar later that morning southeast of Alturas.

Modoc County Sheriff Bruce Mix said air searchers located the plane Friday morning in the rugged Warner Mountain Range about 170 miles northeast of Sacramento.

Weintraub said a rescue helicopter reached the crash site later Friday and found no survivors. He said company personnel were among those who reached the site and contacted him with news that no one had survived.

He said the plane was carrying Tom Blaesing, owner of Commander Northwest; Brian White, the company’s director of maintenance; and White’s wife, Jody White; John Peters, co-owner of a Wenatchee area restaurant; and John Topkok, a Commander Northwest pilot.

Forks

Prowler parts retrieved: Navy search and rescue workers have recovered some equipment from the wreckage of an EA-6B Prowler jet from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station that crashed in the Olympic National Forest during a training exercise. Navy investigators have visited the crash site but must still decide whether to airlift larger pieces of wreckage, Olympic National Forest spokesman Ken Eldredge said. The crash site, a steep, heavily forested canyon about 20 miles north of Forks, remained closed to the public.

Carnation

Mudslide closes Highway 203: A mudslide early Friday forced the closure of Highway 203 north of Carnation in central King County, the state Department of Transportation said. The slide was blocking one lane of the highway at Fay Road, about three miles north of Carnation. Crews were called to the scene, but there was no immediate estimate when the road would be reopened. Highway 203 is the main route through Carnation, connecting it with Duvall in King County and Monroe in south Snohomish County.

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