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ARCATA, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on a small medical transport plane that crashed in Northern California (all times local):
3:55 p.m.
Authorities say they have recovered all four bodies from the wreckage of a small medical transport plane that crashed in Northern California early Friday.
Humboldt County's chief deputy coroner, Ernie Stewart, confirmed to The Associated Press that his office has received four victims. Two people were confirmed dead earlier Friday.
Stewart declined to identify the bodies until next of kin has been notified.
A pilot was taking a flight nurse, a transport medic and a patient from Crescent City, near the Oregon border, to Oakland.
Rescue teams found the crash site Friday on land owned by a private timber company in Humboldt County, about 280 miles north of San Francisco.
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11:25 a.m.
Authorities say searchers have found the wreckage of a small medical transport plane in remote Northern California and that at least two people are dead.
A pilot was taking a flight nurse, a transport medic and a patient from Crescent City, near the Oregon border, to Oakland. The Humboldt County Sheriff's Office didn't immediately release information about the fates of the other two people aboard.
Rescue teams found the crash site Friday on land owned by a private timber company in Humboldt County, about 280 miles north of San Francisco.
Officials say the pilot reported smoke filling the cockpit and declared an emergency around 1 a.m.
The National Transportation and Safety Board has been notified.
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11 a.m.
Authorities in Northern California are narrowing down the search for a missing medical transport plane with four people aboard.
Officials say the pilot reported smoke filling the cockpit and declared an emergency early Friday. He was flying a flight nurse, a transport medic and a patient from Crescent City, near the Oregon border, to Oakland.
A crew on the ground is combing a remote area owned by a private timber company until thick fog lifts in the early afternoon. That's when a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter will assist in the search.
The Federal Aviation Administration says the pilot planned to return to Crescent City before vanishing from radar near an airport on the far northern coast.
Don Wharton, spokesman for the plane's parent company, REACH Air Medical Services, says flights at night are common and he's trying to remain hopeful.
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9:15 a.m.
Authorities say they're searching for a small medical transport plane with four people aboard that has been missing for about eight hours in Northern California.
The Federal Aviation Administration says the pilot of the Piper PA31 declared an emergency around 1 a.m. Friday when smoke filled the cockpit.
REACH Air Medical Services says in a statement that the plane was carrying the pilot, a flight nurse, a transport medic and a patient.
FAA spokesman Ian Gregor says the plane planned to fly about 360 miles from Crescent City, near the Oregon border, to Oakland.
Gregor says the pilot reported that he planned to return to Crescent City before losing contact. The plane went missing from radar 5 miles north of the Arcata-Eureka Airport on the far northern coast of California.
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