PLANE CRASH-INVESTIGATION

Pilot didn’t answer radio call

By News Director Leslie Stratmoen

LANDER, Wyo. — The Fremont County coroner says a Colorado couple killed in a plane crash in Wyoming’s Wind River Range last month died of massive blunt force trauma. The 71-year-old pilot Robert Dawson and his 69-year-old wife Mary were flying southeastward from Driggs, Idaho to Front Range Airport outside Denver, Colorado on Aug. 14 when the plane crashed. The plane was registered to a company based in Parker, Colorado.

Cirque of the Towers

A report recently released by the National Transportation Safety Board says controllers in Salt Lake City tried to contact the pilot of the single-engine plane after it disappeared from radar over one of Wyoming’s favorite mountain climbing peaks called the Cirque of the Towers. Authorities say the Beechcraft A36 Bonanza plane crashed at about 11,400 feet above sea level, 20 miles west of the mountain town of Lander, which lies in the foothills of the Wind River Mountains.

The downed plane was located the same day as the crash by an air search, but no survivors were found by a ground rescue team. The bodies were later recovered by deputies from the Fremont County Coroner’s Office.

With contributions from The Associated Press