Idaho man killed in plane crash

SAN DIEGO — Two men killed when their plane crashed into the Volcan Mountain Wilderness Preserve were identified Tuesday by authorities as student pilots from Idaho and Utah.

The bodies of Bradford Astin Cederblom, 20, of Rathdrum, Idaho, and Damon Lott, 24, of Leeds, Utah, were discovered with the plane’s wreckage just after midnight Monday by the Civil Air Patrol.

The plane crashed about 3 1/2 miles north of Julian, Calif.

The two were students at the Pan Am International Flight Academy and were on their way to Carlsbad’s McClellan-Palomar Airport from the school’s Phoenix location when air traffic controllers lost contact with them at 6:30 p.m., authorities said. According to an NBC report, locals call Volcan Mountain “Death Mountain,” because so many planes have crashed there. One resident told NBC he remembers nine crashes since 1993 and a total of 13 people killed.

The men were completing an equipment training exercise with at least three other planes from the school when the accident occurred, the Medical Examiner’s Office said.

They were flying a twin-engine Piper Seminole, said Donn Walker, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.