Wreckage Of Missing Plane Found Near Anza Borrego

By Jenny ShearerUNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
October 20, 2005

ANZA-BORREGO DESERT STATE PARK – Searchers with the Civil Air Patrol found the wreckage of a single-engine plane yesterday that left Gillespie Field on Monday bound for Scottsdale with three people and a dog on board.

The pilot and passengers, who were killed, were from the Phoenix area and were in San Diego for the Miramar Air Show. They left El Cajon in the four-seat Columbia 400 about 10:15 a.m. Monday. No flight plan was filed, authorities said.

The wreckage was spotted about 10 a.m. yesterday by air patrol volunteers with the Palm Springs squadron, said Maj. Brian Stover, mission information officer.

The CAP had been searching for the plane since Tuesday afternoon. The crash site is on Bucksnort Mountain, about two miles from the end of Chihuahua Valley Road.

A Sheriff's Department dispatcher confirmed that three bodies, and that of the dog, were found at the scene.

Official identification is pending because investigators with the Medical Examiner's Office have not gone to the crash site, because of its remote location.