Skagit Plane Crash Kills Four

Four men were killed when their single-engine airplane crashed in a field yesterday soon after taking off from Skagit Regional Airport.

The Skagit County sheriff's office said the single-engine Beechcraft Bonanza was leased out of Friday Harbor, San Juan Island.

Frank Kendall, Skagit County coroner, said the plane was burned so badly it was impossible to identify the victims immediately.

"It nosed into the ground and burned," Kendall said. "It was pretty much a pile of ashes."

Autopsies on the four victims, whose bodies were found in the wreckage, will be performed this weekend.

According to the Sheriff's Department, witnesses said the aircraft appeared to have engine trouble after it took off. As the plane turned back toward the runway the engine stalled and it crashed, burning on impact.

"Eyewitnesses thought they heard a malfunction in the engine," said Patricia Burkland, executive director of the Port of Skagit County, whose office is at the airport terminal. "They heard something out of line."

Eric Stendal, the port's assistant director, said the plane went down about 200 yards off the end of the 5,475-foot runway at 3:50 p.m. The airport, also called Bayview, is in the community of Bayview about three miles west of Burlington.

The plane arrived earlier in the day from Friday Harbor and had just taken off to return to Friday Harbor before the crash, airport manager Dick Wilson said.

Bob Olson of Lake Stevens, plant manager at

4 DIE IN PLANE CRASH

Innovac Technology Inc. at the airport, and Greg Sherman of Marysville, an employee, said they saw the takeoff and turn.

"We didn't see it hit the ground," Olson said. "We saw it heading toward ground and then some flames."

The airport, which has no control tower, has been operating since the 1940s when it was used as a relief base for craft from Whidbey Island Naval Air Station, Burkland said.

The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are expected to begin an investigation today into the cause of the crash.

-- Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.