FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Missing Telluride-Bound Aircraft Located
All Four Occupants Dead
Contact: San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters 970-729-2025
or Pubic Information Officer Susan Lilly 970-729-2028
January 3, 2017 -- (Telluride, CO) – A small, private aircraft that departed from Scottsdale (AZ) travelling to Telluride (CO) has been found, crashed, near Payson (AZ) after missing since Monday. All four occupants, two adults and two children, were found deceased.
San Miguel County Sheriff’s Dispatchers received a call at 9:20pm Monday in which the reporting party stated she was concerned that her family had not yet arrived Telluride via the private aircraft believed to have departed on Monday morning. The pilot of the Cessna 210 aircraft did not file a flight plan, and the parties had not been heard from.
Sheriff’s Deputies contacted the Scottsdale Police Department regarding the overdue aircraft and were dispatched to the Telluride airport but did not find anything.
According to a statement issued by the Gila County Sheriff’s Office in Payson, AZ, it’s office was contacted by the Scottsdale Police Department for assistance in locating the missing aircraft.
According to the statement, a cell phone was pinged and Deputies, along with the Arizona Department of Public Safety Ranger Helicopter and the Air Force Civil Air Patrol located the downed aircraft north-west of Washington park, north of Payson, Arizona at 5:35am Tuesday.
The Scottsdale Police Department says the Cessna 210 crashed with four people on board: a 31 year-old woman, her 44 year-old husband and his two daughters (ages 12 and 14) from a previous marriage.
The identities of the deceased individuals will be released by the appropriate Arizona agencies once identification is confirmed and notifications have been made. This is an ongoing investigation, and more information is expected to be released by the Gila County Sheriff’s Office as it becomes available.
San Miguel County Sheriff Bill Masters said, “Our thoughts are with the families of the individuals that perished in this tragic accident.”
The San Miguel Sheriff’s Office, located in Telluride, Colorado and established in 1883, serves 7,800 residents and countless visitors across the 1,288 square miles of San Miguel County. Sheriff Bill Masters has been serving as the county’s elected Sheriff since 1980.