Wrecked plane, 7 bodies found in the Cascades

Searchers late Monday found the bodies of seven people amid the wreckage of a single-engine plane that crashed in the rugged Cascade range.

The search for three others continued this morning, but it appeared that no one survived the crash, emergency officials said.

The Cessna 208 Grand Caravan was carrying nine Snohomish-based skydivers and a pilot who were returning from a weekend outing in Idaho.

The plane had been reported missing Sunday night on a flight from Star, Idaho, to Shelton, Mason County.

The families of those aboard had been notified, said Jim Hall, director of Yakima Valley Emergency Management. Identities of those aboard had not been officially released.

One of the passengers was Landon Atkin, 20, of Snohomish, according to Rick Mangan, a skydiving instructor with Blue Skies in Bremerton.

Mangan met Atkin earlier this year and worked with him as an instructor for a brief time before the weather went foul in August, he said. "He wanted me to do some coaching with him and teach him some of the techniques of a different style of skydiving," Mangan said. "He's a very nice guy."

Atkin was a "packer" in Snohomish, meaning he packed parachutes, Mangan said. Atkin's family declined to comment.

The plane disappeared from radar screens Sunday night about two-thirds of the way to its destination. The area where the plane was found -- mountainous, heavily wooded terrain near White Pass -- had been the focus of an extensive air and ground search that began Monday morning and stretched into the evening.

The smell of fuel led searchers to the wreckage about 7:40 p.m., but they found only the front section of the plane, the Yakima County Sheriff's Office said. The tail section had been detached and had not been found Monday night.

Officials used the serial number to confirm that it was the skydivers' plane.

Earlier Monday, members of the skydiving community used cellphones, online message boards and social-networking sites such as MySpace to try to determine who was on the plane. Some friends and relatives of those aboard had gathered at a home in Snohomish.

"It's agonizing," said Kandace Harvey, president of Harvey Field, while she waited for word. The Snohomish airport was the nine skydivers' main drop zone.

"We're hoping and praying for a miracle," she said before the wreckage was found. "They're our friends, they're our family. And we all need to know they're OK."

The aircraft is owned by Kapowsin Air Sports in Shelton, said Jessie Farrington, the company's owner. Farrington said she rented the plane to the pilot and skydivers Friday for an event in Idaho. She said the team made a quick jump in Shelton on Friday before heading to Idaho.

The plane was due back at Shelton's Sanderson Field by 7:30 p.m. Sunday. When Farrington and her husband hadn't heard from them by 10:30 p.m., they called authorities.

Farrington described the pilot as experienced in flying skydiving trips.

The plane, a "stretch" version of Cessna's popular Caravan model, has been the subject of directives from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Transportation Safety Board of Canada warning against operating in icy conditions. Since 1990, 20 crashes of the plane worldwide have been linked to icing. Problems have resulted from inexperienced pilots trying to fly the craft in poor weather, according to the two agencies.

Overnight temperatures in the White Pass area ranged from the upper 20s to near freezing Sunday night, said meteorologist Allen Kam of the National Weather Service in Seattle. At about 7 p.m. Sunday, wind gusts reached 45 knots and humidity contributed to cloudy conditions, he said.

Yakima County Search and Rescue officials said a hunter reported hearing a small plane with engine trouble about 8 p.m. Sunday and heard what might have been a crash southwest of Rimrock Lake. Using the hunter's account and radar information, air and ground search crews Monday scoured an area southwest of Rimrock Lake.

Searchers had been unable to pick up any emergency distress signal from the aircraft, according to state Department of Transportation officials.

The skydivers were on their way back from a skydiving "boogie" -- a sort of festival, or gathering of skydivers -- near Boise, Mangan said.

Elaine Harvey, co-owner of Skydive Snohomish, said nine of the 10 aboard were either employees of her business or local, licensed skydivers. Skydive Snohomish operates a training school and offers skydiving flights at Harvey Field.

The nighttime return flight to Shelton's Sanderson Field wasn't a jump run, but the skydivers would have had their parachutes nearby in the plane, Mangan said. He and others in the community were holding out hope that some of the skydivers might have parachuted from the plane before it went down.

"If I was on a jump plane that was having engine trouble, rather than risk a landing in the mountains, I would have gotten out of the plane," he said.

It's not unheard-of for skydivers to bail out of a plane before it hits the ground.

On Aug. 21, 1983, nine skydivers and two pilots were killed in the crash of a Lockheed L-18 Learstar near Silvana in Snohomish County. Fifteen skydivers successfully parachuted from the plane before it crashed in a field.

The plane, operated by Landry Aviation, had taken off from the Arlington Airport a short time earlier.

Mike Metcalf, of Kent, was among those who jumped from the plane and survived. He said news of Monday's crash transported him back to the 1983 incident.

"The first thing that went through my mind was a visual of the airplane going upside down in 1983. The first six months after that crash, every night I would wake up with that mental video playing in my mind -- watching it from the time it went over to the time it impacted the ground," he said. "You learn to live with it."

That day, he lost several close friends, bonded by the shared love of skydiving, he said. "We all went through some real tough months and years afterward. We don't think so much about the accident itself but about the friends we lost," he said.

During the day Monday, more than two dozen friends and family members gathered at the White Pass ski area's lodge. Too distraught to talk to reporters, most families requested that questions be handled by Red Cross staff.

"It's not easy for anybody. Even though we're not related to them, you can relate pretty quickly," said Red Cross spokeswoman Stephanie Kinney, whose eyes teared up when she noted that her 18-year-old son is about the same age as many of those believed to be on the plane.

Wanda Craig held a photo of her son Casey, who she told KING-TV was aboard the plane.

Ryan Shipley, 32, was among the skydivers who dropped by Harvey Field looking for news Monday about the crash, which he assumed involved some of his friends.

"It's a tightknit community," said Shipley, of Lake Stevens. "Skydiving is a language not a lot of people speak. If you find someone who speaks that language, it's an instant bond."

Shipley said that under different circumstances he might have been on that plane. "The past five boogies they've gone on, I've probably been on four of them," he said.

Brian Alexander: 206-464-2026 or balexander@seattletimes.com.

Seattle Times staff reporters Christina Siderius, Christopher Schwarzen, Jennifer Sullivan and Warren Cornwall and news researchers Gene Balk and Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report. Information from the Yakima Herald-Republic and The Associated Press also is included.