Crews Find Bodies, Plane Wreckage

Ground crews on Tuesday finally located the wreckage of a singleengine plane reported missing since Saturday in the central Idaho mountains. The bodies believed to be those of the pilot and his two passengers were also found on Profile Mountain just outside the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.

The Valley County Sheriff’s Office said the wreckage was badly burned and a positive identification had not been completed on the victims. But in a statement Sheriff Lewis Pratt said they appeared to be pilot Marv Gregersen, 69, the retire head of the state’s Occupational Licensing Bureau, attorney Howard Manley, 62, and Linda Devalis, 45.

The plane disappeared on Saturday following take off from the Big Creek area where Manley was believed to have closed up the Big Creek Lodge for the winter.

“They were supposed to come into Cascade and on into Boise,” Pratt said. “We had a witness in Yellow Pine who said it was foggy, but they did see an airplane trying to get its bearings. It then headed off in an easterly direction.”

Pratt said investigators from the Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board would be continuing their inquiry into the crash.