The bodies of five
people were found inside the wreckage of a single-engine plane that crashed
into a cold, murky reservoir in southwestern Colorado over
the weekend,
authorities said Monday.
The wreckage will
have to be brought to shore before the bodies can be removed, Ouray (yoo-RAY')
County spokeswoman Marti Whitmore said. The plane is about 60 or 70 feet
underwater and upside down in about 3 feet of silt, officials said.
A salvage team is
expected to begin raising the wreckage on Wednesday. The bodies were spotted
with a remote-control video camera, and divers confirmed them, Whitmore said.
Authorities haven't
released the identities of the victims but said the flight originated in
Gadsden, Ala.
The single-engine
Socata TBM700 crashed at about 2 p.m. Saturday into Ridgway Reservoir, about 25
miles south of Montrose and about 180 miles southwest of Denver.
The plane was bound
for Montrose and had made an intermediate stop in Bartlesville, Okla., Federal
Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said.
The cause of the
crash isn't yet known.
According to
preliminary reports, the pilot reported that the plane was in a spin before
losing communication, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Eric Weiss
said Monday.
That's consistent
with an eyewitness account from a woman who was attending a wedding nearby when
the plane crashed.
"It popped out
of the thick, heavy clouds and went into a flat spin," Lena Martinez told
the Ouray County Plaindealer.
Such eyewitness
accounts have been turned over to the FAA and the NTSB for their
investigations.
This photo provided by the Ouray County Plaindealer
shows rescue personnel towing the tail second of …
The tail separated
from the plane but the rest of the wreckage was relatively complete, although
damaged, authorities said. Sheriff Dominic Mattivi said one wing was nearly
severed.
The plane is registered
to an Alabama corporation. Messages left for the company weren't immediately
returned.
In Alabama, a
makeshift memorial appeared outside Gadsden's Mitchell Elementary School for
two boys thought to have been on the plane.
Two small football
helmets, two teddy bears, flowers and candles were piled among written notes
from classmates.
Stephen Powell of
Gadsden brought his 9-year-old son to the memorial Monday afternoon. Powell
said he had to make two stops because his son was too upset to get out of the
car the first time.
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