Rabbit Ears Pass – Rescuers on Sunday found two bodies in the wreckage of an airplane that went missing over the weekend.
The discovery came after tips from hunters in the area allowed three search teams, a plane and a helicopter to focus their efforts near Walton Peak.
“It really helped us out,” Routt County Search and Rescue spokesman Tom Scilacci said of the abundance of hunters. “We had one group that went looking for (the plane) last night, and they got close enough that they smelled gas.”
After searching unsuccessfully for the plane themselves, the hunters reported they heard a low-flying plane sputtering followed by silence at about 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Scilacci said. That was about the same time controllers lost track of the four-seat, Lancair Columbia 350.
Rescue teams began searching Saturday night using tracking beacons, but they did not find the plane, either.
Scilacci said the two people onboard were returning to Steamboat Springs from a trip to the Midwest when the plane went down. Searchers found the crash site around 10:30 a.m. Sunday. There were no survivors.
“We are back into a recovery mode now,” Scilacci said.
Officials did not identify the victims.
This part of Routt National Forest is remote and densely forested, making it difficult for rescuers to search. But those same characteristics attract elk and deer hunters this time of year, and several said they noticed the commotion.
“We just heard a plane flying real low last night,” said Marty Radke, a hunter from Kansas who was camping in the area. “I wasn’t sure it was anything, but it was low enough for me to notice.” Rescuers worked Sunday to get the Routt County coroner to the scene and remove the bodies. The coroner will try to determine a cause of death.
Staff writer George Merritt can be reached at 720-929-0893 or gmerritt@denverpost.com.
