Cascades airplane crash kills 10 people

YAKIMA – Ground searchers following the smell of fuel found the wreckage of a plane that crashed in the rugged central Washington Cascades, but neither the pilot nor nine skydivers aboard appeared to have survived.

Jim Hall, director of Yakima Valley Emergency Management, said all on board were believed dead and their families notified.

The aircraft was found about 7:40 p.m., and searchers were able to verify by serial number that it was the missing aircraft, said Yakima Valley Emergency Management spokeswoman Tina Wilson.

The Cessna 208 Grand Caravan left Star, Idaho, near Boise, Sunday evening en route to Shelton, Wash., northwest of Olympia. The plane was returning from a skydiving meet.

When members of the Tacoma Mountain Rescue Team came upon the wreckage they found that the tail section missing from the rest of the plane, Wilson said. It has not been located.

The names of those aboard have not been released.

Elaine Harvey, co-owner of the skydiving company Skydive Snohomish, told the Seattle Times that nine of the 10 aboard were either employees of her business or licensed skydivers who considered Snohomish their “home drop zone.”