PORT TOWNSEND — A team from the National Transportation Safety Board was headed this afternoon to the Dabob Bay-area site of a plane crash where the bodies of four Cessna 182 occupants were found, Michael Haas, Jefferson County Prosecuting Attorney-Coroner, said today.
“The NTSB has a team headed here,” Haas said.
Jefferson County Undersheriff Joe Nole confirmed the tail number of the Cessna was N52388, registered to two Sequim owners, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.
Nole said he would not identify the plane’s occupants until next of kin are notified.
“They got all the bodies out of there,” Nole said this afternoon.
“The FAA is coming tomorrow.”
Searchers this morning located a small fixed-wing aircraft that disappeared from air traffic controller contact last night in the Dabob Bay area east of Quilcene, authorities said.
Using radar forensics data and the plane’s emergency locator transmitter, search crews were able to find the aircraft in a heavily wooded ravine, state Department of Transportation spokeswoman Barbara LaBoe said.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor said the aircraft was flying to William R. Fairchild International Airport in Port Angeles.
As of midmorning, search crews were still working through the difficult scene to recover the victims, she said.
The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board investigators will arrive on-scene Saturday morning to examine the aircraft.
Participants in the mission are from Jefferson County Search & Rescue, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, WSDOT, Civil Air Patrol, U.S. Navy, Washington Emergency Management Division, Quilcene Fire District 2 and Port Ludlow Fire District 3, LaBoe said.
The single-engine plane departed Seattle’s Boeing Field just after 6 p.m. on Thursday.
Air traffic control lost contact with the plane at 6:44 p.m.
Emergency locator signals were used to define the search area.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 55650, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
