CASCADE, Idaho, Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The hope of finding survivors was waning after a small plane carrying five people crashed Saturday in rural Idaho, law enforcement officials said.
The Valley County Sheriff's Department said rescue crews in helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft as well as several teams on the ground again began Wednesday combing wooded areas about 50 miles northeast of Cascade, Idaho, in the vast mountainous and densely forested central portion of the state, The Salt Lake Tribune reported.
The plane, a 1980s single engine BE-36 Beech Bonanza, was piloted by Dale Smith. Riding along were his son, Daniel, wife, Sheree, daughter, Amber and her fiance, Jonathon Norton. The Tribune said the family was en route from Baker City, Ore., to Butte, Mont., when the plane began having engine trouble.
Smith radioed to air traffic controllers for coordinates to an air strip near the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area but the plane dropped off radar before making it there.
