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Pilot killed in plane crash in SE Elmore County
The wreckage of a plane that disappeared enroute from Caldwell to Centerville, Utah, was discovered Tuesday morning in a remote section of southeast Elmore County near the Twin Falls County line.
The Twin Falls County Sheriff's office said the pilot of the plane, believed to be Craig Jewett of Utah, according to Caldwell Airport officials, did not survive the crash.
Federal Aviation Administration records indicate the plane is owned by Karl Neilson of Caldwell, but officials at the Caldwell Airport said Jewett was believed to be in the process of purchasing the plane, a 1965 Piper Comanche single-engine aircraft.
Jewett apparently left the Caldwell Airport some time between 7 and 8 p.m. Sunday night.
According to Mel Coulter, a spokesperson for the the Idaho Transportation Department's Division of Aeronautics, Jewett had come up on another plane to Caldwell, to pick up the plane in which he later crashed, and the two pilots intended to fly back together to Centerville.
The other pilot lost contact with him somewhere over Hagerman Sunday night. Weather conditions were good at that time with a ceiling of 10,000 feet, slight overcast and visibility of seven miles, but it was dark, Coulter noted.
Both pilots had been in contact with the Twin Falls Airport tower at about 8:30 p.m., Coulter said, but at 8:40 p.m. radar operators at Mountain Home AFB and the Salt Lake City Air Traffic Control Center lost contact with the plane. Officials described the descent as appearing to be "quite rapid," falling from 4,000 feet to 1,500 feet above the ground in less than a minute before contact was lost.
There is no indication the aircraft's Emergency Location Transmitter, which is designed to identify a crash location, if the device is not destroyed in the crash, was transmitting.
It is not known exactly when Jewett was reported missing. The pilot of the plane that had accompanied Jewett went on to Centerville and waited for him to arrive, Coulter said. When Jewett didn't show up, the pilot flew back to Caldwell. However, by Sunday night an "All Alert Notice" had been issued by the FAA and small fields along the flight path had been notified to be on the alert for the plane.
Search and rescue teams were alerted Monday evening and at 5:20 a.m. Tuesday the first search teams from the Twin Falls Sheriff's Office began a ground search. The plane's wreckage was discovered slightly after 10 a.m.
Although the wreckage was first found by deputies from the Twin Falls County Sheriff's Office, jurisdiction was transferred to the Elmore County Sheriff's Office once the exact location of the crash site was determined. Elmore County Search and Rescue teams and investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board were on the way to the scene late Tuesday morning at press time. The Civil Air Patrol had placed six aircraft on standby to assist in the search, but weather conditions Tuesday prevented them from launching.
No further details were immediately available at press time.