10/7/2009 12:29:00 PM
YCSO finds second victim in fatal plane crash
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Special to the BBN
Officials Tuesday evening discovered a second victim from Sunday's fatal plane crash near Crown King.
The Yavapai County Sheriff's Office had confirmed one fatality before darkness halted the initial search. On Tuesday, YCSO Forest Patrol deputies and members of the Response Team, Back Country Unit, confirmed two victims - Ralph Smith, 74, and his wife Francis Smith, 70. The couple lived in Aguila, an unincorporated Maricopa County community west of Wickenburg.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators are on the scene and have assumed responsibility for the investigation, which is ongoing.
On Monday afternoon, YCSO deputies responded to a reported downed aircraft in the Horsethief Basin area near Crown King. Personnel from the Arizona Bureau of Land Management were handling a brush fire in the vicinity apparently caused by the plane crash, and were not aware of the crash during their initial firefighting efforts.
Direct access to the crash site, which lies on a remote mountainside, is available only by air.
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