Wenatchee-area residents killed in California plane crash

Five people from the Wenatchee area died when their plane slammed into Eagle Peak in the rugged Warner Mountain Range near Alturas, Calif.

Missing since Wednesday morning, the plane, a twin-engine Aero Commander, was located yesterday morning.

Officials with the Modoc County Sheriff's Department rappelled from helicopters down the 10,000-foot mountain to the crash site in an attempt to recover the five bodies.

Dave Weintraub, chief pilot for Commander Northwest, the company that owns the plane, said it left Reno on Wednesday morning en route to Wenatchee.

The five were part of a group that went to Reno on a company-sponsored trip for employees, Weintraub said. The business provides planes and pilots for hire.

On board were Tom Blaesing, owner of Commander Northwest; Brian White, the company's director of maintenance; his wife, Jodi White; company pilot John Topkok; and John Peters, the co-owner of a Wenatchee-area restaurant, said Weintraub. He said he was flying a second plane that also left Reno on Wednesday but safely reached its destination.

"It was kind of an end-of-season promotion put on by the company for the employees," Weintraub said. The company's busiest times are in the spring, summer and fall.

Authorities at first thought the missing plane might have landed at another strip, said Lt. Col. Thomas Traver, a Civil Air Patrol spokesman based in Portland.

Traver said the pilot made no contact indicating trouble.

An emergency transmitter that is supposed to send a signal after an accident was not activated.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating.

Search crews could not start looking for the wreckage on Thursday because of snow and strong, shifting winds.

Bad weather may have contributed to the accident, said National Weather Service meteorologist Fredric Bunnag, who works out of the Medford, Ore., station.

Eagle Peak, one of the tallest mountains in the rugged Warner range that extends from southern Oregon into northern California and borders Nevada, likely had snow Wednesday since the mountain is well above the 7,000-foot freezing level recorded for that day, he said.

"It was raining and the clouds were low, so I'd surmise that the mountain tops were obscured," Bunnag said. "From what I understand, they crashed pretty near the peak. If they'd gone a little higher they would've cleared it. They almost cleared it."