It will take a couple of days for searchers to carry down the remains of 10 people from a Snohomish skydiving club, found Monday night in their wrecked airplane that went down near White Pass.
A press conference on the crash wrapped up about 9:30 a.m. at the operations base where rescuers had been working since early Monday. The plane went down Sunday.
“It’s a matter of time pulling wreckage apart,” Yakima County Sheriff Ken Irwin said.
Family and friends of those lost converged at White Pass Lodge as news was developing and before the plane had been found.
“It was a tremendous tragedy and they are doing about as well as can be expected,” said Jim Hall, Yakima County’s director of emergency management.
“The people on the plane were all my friends, all my family,” said Kelly Craig, whose younger brother, Casey Craig, 30, was aboard the Cessna Air Caravan. The group had used the plane for skydiving at an airstrip in Star, Idaho over the weekend.
“We’re all family, every single one,” said Craig, who, along with their sister Ivy, also skydives.
“Skydiving is an educated risk… It’s not as safe as staying in bed, but it’s not what you think it is until you go out and try it… They all made lots of jumps this weekend and that wasn’t the part that got ‘em.”
Craig said he believed the group was not wearing their parachutes because it was a longer flight. They would have been wearing seat belts, Craig said. The plane was heading for a Shelton airstrip, where the leased plane was based.
The Cessna 208 Grand Caravan crashed in rough terrain near Rimrock Lake west of Yakima. Only seven bodies have been found. Searchers are still looking for the tail section and three other people.
The Harvey Field-based skydivers were believed to be the only people aboard the plane.
Federal aviation officials are investigating.
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