Dr. Pamela Riddle Bird and two of her close friends were killed in a plane crash in the Cabinet Mountains near Hope on Thursday. Bonner County Sheriff Daryl Wheeler confirmed on Friday that the trio departed the Bird Aviation Museum & Invention Center at Glengary Bay in a Cessna 182 at 8:16 a.m. Exactly 10 minutes later, the U.S. Air Force Rescue Coordination Center at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida notified the sheriff's office that it had received a signal from an emergency locator beacon in Bonner County. A Civil Air Patrol airplane was scrambled and located the downed Cessna in rugged terrain on the flank of Round Top Mountain using the coordinates provided by the rescue coordination center. Wheeler said choppers Air-1 Sandpoint Helicopters and 2 Bear Air in Whitefish, Mont., assisted in the search for the downed Cessna. "It was just a devastating crash site," Wheeler said. Two people were found dead in the plane's front seats, but a third person remained unaccounted for/Keith Kinnaird, Hagadone News Service. More here.