Efforts to reach the bodies of the two occupants of a plane that crashed Saturday night on 13,723-foot Vermejo Peak were called off Monday because of rapidly deteriorating weather and avalanche danger.
Sgt. James Chavez of the Costilla County Sheriff’s Department said search-and-rescue crews got within a mile and a half of the debris field left by the Beech Baron before they had to retreat from the mountain 38 miles west of Trinidad.
The search-and-rescue crews that attempted to reach the site were on Sno-Cats from neighboring Las Animas County, according to Chavez.
Chavez said there were two people on board — a man and a woman — when the twin-engine plane refueled in Pueblo.
He said the plane, from Calgary, Canada, was headed to Santa Fe.
Canadian authorities are notifying relatives of the pilot and the passenger. When that is done, authorities will release the names of the crash victims, Chavez said.
The cause of the crash is unknown.
The pilot never broadcast a mayday or turned on a distress beacon that could be picked up by search aircraft or satellites, officials said.
The debris field on the peak’s northeast face was spotted Sunday by a military helicopter from Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque.
Howard Pankratz: 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com
