A pilot found the wreckage of a plane that crashed last month carrying four people, including three National Park Service employees. ((Courtesy National Park Service)) |
Debris from the plane carrying three National Park Service employees and a pilot in Katmai National Park was located on the coast Tuesday.
A helicopter pilot spotted portions of the aircraft on a narrow section of beach about 10 miles northwest of Sukoi Bay.
"It was debris from the aircraft, a portion of the tail, which we were able to identify tail numbers and the aircraft color and some other debris but clearly the plane had broken up," said John Quinley, a spokesperson for the National Park Service.
Pilot Sam Egli, who spotted and called in the wreckage says he found a pair of shoes, a jacket and torn pieces of a pair of waders near the aircraft debris.
The National Park Service said the same area had been flown over Monday, but they didn't see anything. The debris was found at the high-tide mark.
"We had flown the area in a fixed wing aircraft on Monday and saw nothing so it appears that it came up to the beach or was exposed on the beach on Tuesday," Quinley said.
He said a very high tide and strong winds the day before may have been a factor in the wreckage's exposure.
Quinley said the area was one of the "highest probability" areas, as they had expected that the plane turned that direction to head up a river valley. The plane started off on Swikshak Lagoon on the east coast of the park, heading towards King Salmon. He said searchers had expected that the plane departed to the north and then turned west and was going to be coming up one of the river valleys out of Kameshak Bay.
The deHavilland Beaver operated by Branch River Air Service in King Salmon, had been missing since August 21.
Aboard the missing plane were the pilot, Marco Alletto, and three Park Service Employees, brothers Neal and Seth Spradlin and Mason McLeod. The helicopter pilot who spotted the debris said there was no indication of survivors.
Jody Spradlin, the mother of the two missing Spradlins, is holding out hope. "Until they have a little more evidence saying differently then im going to hold on to faith and hope that somehow my boys are still alive," she said from King Salmon, where she has been since three days after the plane went missing.
"The local people here have been wonderful to us. They put us up and helped us and people have flown us, just regular old pilots and we've hired planes... so any day that it's nice we're up there looking," she said.
National Park Service and military personnel were heading to the site Wednesday morning to secure the debris and continue the search for additional wreckage.
