A victim’s smartwatch helped search and rescue crews locate a plane that went down in dense woods in Montana, a local sheriff’s office said Monday.
Responding crews found all three people on board dead, the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.
They were identified as Rodney Conover, 60, and Madison Conover, 23, of Tennessee; and Kurt Enoch Robey, 55, of Utah, according to the office.
According to the office, the plane took off from West Yellowstone Airport shortly before midnight on Thursday. The U.S. Department of Transportation Aero Division informed local authorities that the aircraft’s whereabouts were unclear.
The sheriff’s office reported that search and rescue teams were able to access location data from a smartwatch belonging to one of the three individuals, leading them to the remote crash site located south of West Yellowstone on Friday afternoon.
Two search and rescue airplanes spotted the location, but ground team members still faced the challenge of reaching the crash site amid what the sheriff’s office described as “dense timber.”
“SAR members located the downed airplane and confirmed all three occupants were deceased,” it said. “The decedents were extricated from the plane and transported by helicopter where their remains were turned over to a Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office deputy coroner.”
The Federal Aviation ministration did not immediately respond to a request for information. A report on the FAA’s aviation safety database states the aircraft was a variant of the Piper Cherokee, a small, single-engine plane. It was carrying two flight crew members and one passenger, according to the agency.
The FAA was tasked, alongside the National Transportation Safety Board, with investigating the cause of the crash.
The weather for the area in recent days has included afternoon wind gusts as strong as 20 mph or greater, chilly overnight temperatures and daytime high temperatures mostly in the upper 70s.
Sheriff Dan Springer offered his “deepest condolences” to loved ones of the deceased.
Insiya Gandhi contributed.
