All bodies recovered from crash site

WHITE PASS, Wash. – Rescuers combing through wreckage found in Washington’s rugged central Cascade Range found the last three victims of a “horrific” plane crash that killed 10 people flying home from a skydiving event.

Seven bodies were found Monday, and the recovery crews found the remaining three Tuesday, said Nisha Marvel, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation’s aviation division.

“It was a pretty extensive crash site,” Marvel said. “The aircraft was in pieces. It’s rough, rugged terrain, and it took about 35 volunteers to comb that recovery area today to find the remaining passengers that had died in the crash.”

The debris at the remote site indicated the Cessna Caravan went down in a steep nosedive, Yakima County Sheriff Ken Irwin told a news conference at a command center.

Mike Robertson, an aviation safety inspector for the Federal Aviation Administration, representing the National Transportation Safety Board, assessed the crash site Tuesday and told reporters, “As far as we can tell the plane is all in one spot.”

Asked about reports that the tail had not been found with the rest of the wreckage, he said any specifics would have to come from the NTSB. But he was heard telling victims’ relatives that the plane’s wings and tail were all there, as far as investigators can ascertain.

There was no explosion or fire, Robertson said, but he refused to speculate on any cause and refused to discuss whether weather could have been a factor.

Tuesday’s focus was on removing the bodies; today’s will be on the aircraft, he said.

The bodies were being taken to the Yakima County coroner’s office.

The plane left Star, Idaho, near Boise, on Sunday evening en route to Shelton, Wash., northwest of Olympia, but did not arrive. It had been returning from a skydiving meet in Idaho when it disappeared.

“We have radar information that shows the rapid descent but other than that we have really no hard evidence as to what caused it,” Marvel said.

Fighting back tears, Kelly Craig, whose 30-year-old brother Casey died in the crash, said the skydivers on board had made lots of jumps over the weekend. He doubted they would have been prepared for an emergency jump, with their parachutes at the ready, on the long flight back.

No jumps were planned during the flight.

Craig’s sister Ivy Green said authorities met with family members and told them there were no survivors.

The plane crashed just east of the crest of the Cascades, about five miles south of White Pass and on the edge of the Goat Rocks Wilderness, said Wayne Frudd of Yakima County Search and Rescue. The crash site is about 25 miles southeast of Mount Rainier.

“I’m told it was a horrific sight and the airplane crashed at a fairly high speed,” said Jim Hall, director of Yakima Valley Emergency Management.

Irwin estimated the debris covered an area measuring only 60 feet by 100 feet. “From that you can ascertain it pretty much went straight down,” he said.

Searchers found the wreckage Monday night after following the scent of fuel to the crash site.

They were able to identify the plane by a serial number, said Tina Wilson, a Yakima Valley Emergency Management spokeswoman.

A hunter in the area had alerted authorities Sunday night that a plane might have been in trouble. Tom Peterson of the state Department of Transportation said the hunter saw the aircraft’s lights, and “thought the engine sounded like it was working really hard and whining loudly, and then silence after that.”

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.”