A plane carrying three members of Wyoming’s Civil Air Patrol, out searching for a missing teenager, crashed and burned in the Bighorn National Forest, officials said Tuesday.
The plane went down Monday evening. Investigators were still trying to reach the remote site where the wreckage was spotted Tuesday morning by a U.S. Forest Service plane, the Federal Aviation Administration said.
FAA spokesman Allen Kenitzer in Renton, Wash., said the plane was destroyed by fire. Its occupants couldn’t have survived, he said.
The pilot of the Cessna 182R last made radio contact with another pilot in the area at about 4 p.m. Monday, according Jeanne Stone-Hunter, public affairs officer for the Civil Air Patrol’s Wyoming Wing. The teen was found alive about an hour later.
The names of the three people aboard the plane were not immediately released.