Two dead after Civil Air Patrol plane crashes in Colorado mountains
Two people died and one was injured after a Civil Air Patrol plane crashed while conducting an aerial photography training exercise amid the rugged peaks of Larimer County, Colorado, on Saturday, officials said.
The Civil Air Patrol is a public service organization made up of volunteer pilots and others who help conduct emergency service operations at the request of government agencies.
The crash, which killed the pilot and an aerial photographer, happened at 11:12 a.m. Saturday in the area of Storm Mountain, about 30 miles southwest of Fort Collins, Colorado.
Emergency workers had to hike to the crash site, authorities said. Responders located the sole survivor, a co-pilot, according to the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office.
In a statement, the office of Colorado Gov. Jared Polis identified the pilot as Susan Wolber and the photographer as Jay Rhoten.
The co-pilot, who was identified as Randall Settergren, was airlifted to a hospital. His condition was not immediately clear Sunday though the sheriff’s office said he had “severe injuries.”
The three had “served the Civil Air Patrol as volunteers who wanted to help make Colorado a better, safer place for all,” Polis said.
Ali Adams, a spokesperson for the Larimer County Sheriff’s Office, said emergency responders were working to retrieve the bodies of the victims Sunday, a task she said was difficult because of the “extreme, rugged terrain.”
The team was carrying out a routine training exercise in a Cessna 182 in conditions that local news media described as very windy. The area where they were flying had been badly burned by the Alexander Mountain fire this summer.
The spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said the crash had taken place in the burn scar area, but that the training exercise had not necessarily been related to the fire.
The National Transportation Safety Board, the Federal Aviation Administration and local authorities will work with the sheriff’s office to investigate the cause of the crash.
The Civil Air Patrol, the official auxiliary of the U.S. Air Force, operates hundreds of aircraft and has around 65,000 volunteers nationwide, including young cadets, according to the organization’s website.
The patrol was formed around the time of World War II to mobilize civilian aviators in the nation’s defense, according to the site. During the war, its pilots patrolled waters off the Atlantic coast and beyond, thwarting submarine attacks and monitoring shipping lanes.
In the decades since, the Civil Air Patrol has carried out various operations at the request of federal, state and local agencies.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, a Civil Air Patrol plane was the only nonmilitary aircraft permitted to enter the airspace, where it captured high-resolution images of the destruction of the World Trade Center, according to the patrol’s website.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization undertook what it described as its “largest mobilization since World War II.” Its members delivered supplies and test kits, helped build field hospitals and transported vaccine vials.
The Colorado wing of the Civil Air Patrol often conducts search-and-rescue operations in the Rocky Mountains, helping to find lost hikers and downed aircraft and to transport emergency personnel and medical supplies.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.