The bodies of two adults and a 10-year-old girl were found in the wreckage of a small airplane that crashed Monday near the route of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, near Anchorage Alaska, according to the Associated Press.
The identities of the victims were the pilot Ted Smith, Carolyn Sorvoya and Rosemaire Sorvoya. They left Anchorage on Monday morning bound for Takotna, a village of 53 people about 17 miles west of McGrath and 235 miles northwest of Anchorage.
The Sorvoja family referred questions to family spokesman David Morris, who said the Sorvojas were heading to Takotna to volunteer for the race. The Cessna 182 left Anchorage from Merrill Field at about 10 a.m. and did not file a flight plan.
The 182 Cessna did not arrive in Takotna and was reported overdue around 4 p.m. when it had not returned to Anchorage. The Alaska Rescue Coordination Center, just before 6 p.m., launched a search with a HC-130 airplane and a helicopter.
Smith was an experienced, well-equipped pilot, said Kalei Brooks, spokeswoman for the Alaska National Guard. Smith was carrying a personal locator beacon in his vest and an emergency locator transmitter on his airplane. However, neither sent out a signal that was detected Monday by the Search and Rescue Satellite Aid Track system.
The search resumed on Tuesday morning with about 10 military, state trooper and private aircraft flying grids in an extended search. Aerial searchers spotted the wreckage at 10:22 a.m. near the 4,000-foot level of Rainy Pass.
Iditarod racers reach an elevation of 3,200 feet at the pass, which divides south central Alaska from the state's vast Interior north of the Alaska Range. Searchers landed and confirmed that no one had survived. They recovered the bodies and flew them to Anchorage, where autopsies were scheduled.
