Crews find wreckage of small medical plane; 2 confirmed dead
CRANNELL, Calif. (AP) - A medical transport plane with four people aboard crashed in a densely forested mountain range in Northern California early Friday after the pilot reported smoke in the cockpit.
Searchers found the crash site hours later and confirmed at least two deaths.
The Piper PA31 was carrying a flight nurse, a transport medic and a patient about 360 miles from Crescent City, near the Oregon border, to Oakland when the pilot declared an emergency around 1 a.m.
The pilot planned to return to Crescent City but the plane vanished from radar 5 miles north of the Arcata-Eureka Airport on the far northern coast, Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.
Rescue teams led by the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department found the crash site hours later on land owned by a private timber company in Humboldt County, about 280 miles north of San Francisco.
Lt. Wayne Hanson said searchers looking from a distance could see two bodies inside the plane. It wasn't immediately clear what happened to the other two aboard.
No identities or other information about the victims was released.
The plane was part of Cal-Ore Life Flight, which transports patients throughout Northern California and Oregon. Don Wharton, a spokesman for parent company REACH Air Medical Services, said nighttime flights are common.
The National Transportation and Safety Board will investigate the crash.