Two Bikers Among Plane Crash Victims Pair Had Ties To Motorcycle Gangs, But Pilot Had No Such Known Affiliation

Sheriff’s divers looked for drugs and guns but found none in the wreckage of a small plane that carried two men with ties to motorcycle gangs.

Investigators still are wondering why bikers Michael L. Wooster and Daniel C. Schoonover were in the plane with restaurant owner Richard W. Donley of Kent, Wash.

The three men died when the plane crashed Monday and sank in Lake Roosevelt north of Kettle Falls, Wash.

The plane was searched by divers and the bodies were recovered, but the wreckage hasn’t been raised from 40 feet of water.

Stevens County Sheriff Craig Thayer said Donley, the pilot and owner of the four-seat Rockwell Commander Model 112 aircraft, had no known criminal record.

Donley, 45, owned a home in the Onion Creek area of northern Stevens County and frequently flew between Colville and Kent, where he operated the Cave Man Kitchens restaurant.

Wooster, 41, formerly of Spokane, lived near Colville. Schoonover, 47, lived near the Lake Roosevelt community of Evans, northwest of Colville.

Wooster is a former “prospect member” of the Hells Angels chapter in Spokane, law enforcement sources say.

He was one of four men with ties to the Hells Angels who were tried last year on charges of intimidating a Spokane County deputy prosecutor who was in charge of a murder case against a motorcycle club leader.

After a mistrial in the murder case, Wooster pleaded guilty last April to attempted stalking, a misdemeanor.

Wooster was sentenced to 100 days in jail and given credit for time served.

At the time of Monday’s plane crash, Wooster no longer was affiliated with the Hells Angels, said club president Richard “Smilin’ Rick” Fabel.

Schoonover was a member of the Iron Horsemen, an outlaw motorcycle gang with ties to the Hells Angels, the sources say.

The former president of the Iron Horsemen, Richard “Butch” Forrest II, of Valley, Wash., was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison in October. He was convicted of involvement in what authorities described as the biggest methamphetamine ring ever broken in Eastern Washington.

Donley had no known affiliation with outlaw biker gangs, according to his sister, Laura Steele of Kent.

“He was verbally against drugs,” Steele said of her brother. “That’s not where he was at, not at all.”

Steele said she didn’t know Wooster or Schoonover and doesn’t know how her brother met the men.

“He was just friendly with everybody, and he may have just met them,” Steele said.

In addition to felony convictions for assault and drug possession, Schoonover had a lengthy record of traffic violations in Stevens and Grant counties. His driver’s license often had been suspended, records show. The traffic charges ranged from speeding to drunken driving. Two counts of driving with a suspended license were pending when he died.

Wooster was convicted in May in Stevens County of driving with a suspended license.

Thayer said authorities were aware of the backgrounds of Schoonover and Wooster when they obtained a warrant for divers to search the submerged plane Tuesday.

The warrant authorized the divers to search for alcohol, drugs or other contraband, weapons and “the fruits of a crime.”

Divers found no evidence of a crime and collected only Donley’s wallet, a set of car keys, a Harley-Davidson wristwatch, an empty flare gun and a Buck folding knife.

Thayer said the search primarily was intended to find anything that might have contributed to the crash.

A van the men had left at the Colville airport was not searched, and no other searches are planned, he said.

Friends of the victims removed a dog that had been left inside the van, Thayer said.

Other law enforcement sources said the airplane may have buzzed the home of Allan “Beanie” Hodges, another Iron Horseman who lives near the crash site.

“We aren’t prepared to go into that yet,” Thayer said.

Arrangements were being made Wednesday for a barge and crane to bring the wreckage to the surface to help federal investigators determine the cause of the crash.

One resident who lives nearby said he saw the northbound plane bank left about 2:40 p.m. Monday in an apparent attempt to make a low pass over the reservoir. The left wing hit the water and the plane broke apart upon impact, the witness said.

, DataTimes