Rescuers in San Miguel County risked their lives climbing treacherous terrain Sunday to recover the bodies of three plane-crash victims who were on their way to Telluride from Texas.
Two men and a woman were on board the single-engine plane that crashed Friday on Wilson Peak, but their identities were not released late Sunday.
The 1965 four-seater Beech 35-C33 plane left Addison, Texas, on Friday, stopped in Taos, N.M., for fuel but never arrived in Telluride, said 1st Lt. Mark Young of the Colorado Wing of the Civil Air Patrol.
Concerned family members called the Federal Aviation Administration on Saturday morning when there was no word from the pilot.
The three victims were on their way to the Telluride Blues and Brews Festival, Young said. While the cause of the crash remains under investigation, Young said the weather was rainy and windy Friday.
A Black Hawk helicopter dropped a 12-member search team below the crash site on the 14,000-foot peak to recover the bodies.
The San Miguel sheriff’s rescue team had trouble scaling the mountain because rocks began to slide on top of them, Young said.
“They tried to make their way up there and started running into a lot of rockfall from snow melting and loosening of rock,” Young said. “The rocks almost took out two team members.”
The helicopter picked the team up and then dropped them above the crash site so they could climb their way down and recover the remains.
The plane that crashed is registered to John Stuart Thompson, 49, of Dallas, who was not on board.
When contacted at home Sunday, Thompson said the plane did not have any mechanical problems and that he had full confidence in the pilot’s ability to fly.
Thompson would not reveal the names of the crash victims until their families were notified and said he was cooperating with investigators.
He also did not want to speculate about why the plane went down.
The deaths of the three on Wilson Peak bring the number of Colorado plane-crash fatalities to 16 this year, according to National Transportation Safety Board statistics. Thirty-four planes have crashed in the state this year.
Those numbers also include the deaths of two New Yorkers who crashed in Moffat County on Friday.
Sergio Savarese, 48, of Southampton, N.Y., and Ivan Luini, 46, of Sag Harbor, N.Y., died when their plane crashed just before 3 p.m.
Oil-field workers in Sweetwater County, Wyo., saw the plane go down and reported it. Wreckage of the plane was found over a 2-mile area.
The plane was equipped with a prototype parachute system, but it did not lessen the impact of the crash. It was not known whether the pilot deployed the parachute or whether it was launched on impact.
Savarese was a founder of the furniture store Dialogica.
He and Luini co-owned a plane and often traveled cross- country, visiting their respective stores, according to family.
In 1988, Savarese created Dialogica, one of the first retailers in New York to feature contemporary furniture designs. He and his wife developed Dialogica into a multimillion-dollar business, with stores in Los Angeles and New York and distributors in other cities.
The New York Times contributed to this report.
Staff writer Felisa Cardona can be reached at 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com.
