Authorities have identified the second of two people who died Wednesday when a fixed-wing, motorized-glider aircraft .
Ronald “Ron” Ueckert, 66, of South Fork, was a passenger in the plane piloted by 64-year-old Robert “Glider Bob” Saunders.
Emil Sante, the San Miguel County coroner, said Thursday a decision on cause and manner of death for the two men is pending further investigation.
Saunders was piloting the fixed-wing, motorized-glider aircraft when it went down, for an unknown reason, in Prospect Basin in the Telluride Ski area around 2 p.m., the county sheriff’s office says.
“Telluride Ski and Golf employees, who were working in the area and had seen the aircraft earlier, responded when they heard what they thought sounded like crash,” the sheriff’s office said.
Both victims died at the scene.
Sheriff Bill Masters said, “This is a terrible tragedy and an enormous loss for the families as well as the entire Telluride community.”
The plane, a Stemme S10-VT Glider, crashed under unknown circumstances 5 miles southeast of Telluride, said Allen Kenitzer, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman.
Federal and local authorities are investigating the crash.
Updated Aug. 29, 2016 at 3:05 p.m. The following corrected information has been updated: Because of a source’s error, an earlier version of this story contained the misspelled last name of the passenger killed in the plane crash. His name is Ronald Ueckert.
