Wednesday, November 12, 2008

San Bernardino County - Small plane down

BANNING, Calif. (AP) ― Authorities are confirming that a 74-year-old pilot from Hesperia and three passengers were killed in a small plane crash in the mountains of San Bernardino County.

Coroner's officials said Tuesday that wreckage spotted near San Gorgonio Peak a day earlier was the plane of Douglas Bowles, as investigators had expected.

Bowles had been missing since his single-engine 1972 Piper Cherokee dropped off radar screens Sunday morning as he flew from Baja California to Hesperia.

Bowles' grandson, 28-year-old Joshua Chlebek, was also killed, along with 29-year-old Oludare Akinwunmi and 60-year old David Helland.

A sheriff's department search and rescue team and a pair of coroner's investigators rappelled down to the wreckage on Tuesday morning.

The cause of the crash remains unknown. Bowles was flying between areas that did not require him to use air traffic controllers.

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