F-16s Help In Search For Wreckage

Four people are dead in Utah after two separate GA accidents. Two people who survived one of the accidents were airlifted to a regional hospital where they're listed in serious condition. Two people also survived the second incident.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports, in the first episode,  James Messinger, 52, of Salt Lake City, and Dawn Sebesta, 56, of Park City, died Saturday afternoon when the single-engine plane in which they were passengers impacted the Cedar Mountains in Tooele County (UT), near Skull valley. Pilot Von Kinder and his wife, Jenny, of Salt Lake City, were listed in serious condition at University Hospital late Saturday with broken bones and internal injuries.

The Kinders were hosting Messinger and Sebesta on a trip to shoot aerial photographs of Utah's west desert. They were searching for raptor nests as part of a volunteer Bureau of Land Management.

Tooele County sheriff's deputies got a 911 cell phone call from Von Kinder at about 1:30 p.m. Saturday.  Von Kinder said the plane had gone down and that possibly one person had died. Before the connection was lost, dispatchers were able to figure out in general terms where to start the search.

Time, of course, was of the essence where survivors were involved. So, rescuers called in two F-16s. With their pilots' eyes in the air, Sheriff Frank Park said searchers found the wreckage about nine miles south of Interstate 80 near Hastings Pass. Deputies had to cut away pieces of the cockpit to get to the two injured and two dead passengers.  

"I am always surprised to find survivors in a small-plane crash, especially in the mountains," Park said. "They are really, really lucky people."

The second accident occurred Friday when Shane Warenski's small plane crashed into the Boulder Mountains in Garfield County near Big Lake (UT). Warenski, 34, of Cedar Hills (UT), and Joseph Eisel, 27, of Salina (UT), were both killed in the crash.  Warenski and Eisel took off Friday afternoon from Holbrook (AZ), hoping to make it home to their families in spite of scattered rainstorms in Garfield County. Family members and co-workers say the weather and Warenski's limited flying experience were likely factors in the plane crash.

Brandi Eisel talked to her husband just an hour before he took off. "He said 'I love you' and I said 'I love you.' We never hung up the phone without saying I love you," she said. "My mom always taught me that you never know when it will be the last time you get to speak to your loved one. You never expect it, but it does happen."

The NTSB is now investigating both accidents.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov