Snohomish County Sheriff teams respond to report of downed aircraft | Updated


July 10, 2011 · Updated 8:07 PM 

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Snohomish County Search and Rescue teams returned to the location of a downed aircraft north east of Granite Falls Sunday to being recovery of the occupants.
SAR volunteers from Everett Mountain Rescue were inserted onto a ridge above the crash site and then rappelled into the scene, which was located in steep terrain. They were able to recover the remains of the two occupants and a Sheriff’s Office helicopter was used to bring them out of the site. The bodies were taken by the Snohomish County Medical Examiner’s Office and results from their examination will be released by that office at a later date.
The recovery team climbed out of the site and was transported safely off of the mountain by the Sheriff’s Office helicopter.
Recovery of the aircraft and subsequent investigation of the cause of this crash will be coordinated by the National Transportation Safety Board with the assistance of the Federal Aviation Administration.

Snohomish County Sheriff's Office Search and Rescue teams originally had responded to a report of a downed aircraft in the mountains north east of Granite Falls Saturday afternoon. At about 8 a.m., on July 9,  the Washington State Department of Transportation Aviation Division received a report of an overdue aircraft that was enroute to the Arlington Fly-In from the Spokane area.

The report was made by a friend of the overdue pilot and the WSDOT was able to quickly begin a radar track search to pinpoint the area where the plane was last known to be. A Search and Rescue helicopter from Naval Air Station Whidbey Island was at the Fly-in and was able to launch to check the area a short time later. Other Civil Air Patrol aircraft also participated in the search and the NAS Whidbey helicopter spotted aircraft wreckage south of Liberty Mountain at about 2 p.m. A rescuer was lowered to the site and no survivors were found at the scene.

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