Lewis County Sirens.com

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

The missing plane from Chehalis has been found, the Lewis County Sheriff’s Office is reporting.

Search and rescue crews on the ground spotted part of the wreckage and are currently making their way towards it, Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said. She got word of the find at 10:30 a.m.

It was located about nine and a half miles northeast of Morton in wooded, steep terrain, according to Brown. Snow is falling at the crash site, she said.

It’s unknown if there are any survivors. They have no estimates of how long it will take to reach the site.

“It’s really slow going, they’re walking across mountains basically,” Brown said.

The search resumed at daylight, about 7 o’clock this morning, according to Brown. More than 70 people assisted, she said.

The Cessna 340, owned by the Chehalis-based Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute, lost radio contact with air traffic control about 7:45 a.m. yesterday after the pilot reported one engine was down.

The pilot is Ken Sabin and the two passengers are Rod Rinta and Dr. Paul Shenk, according to Debbie Eldredge of Pacific Cataract.

Pacific Cataract keeps a handful of planes at the Chehalis-Centralia Airport to fly surgeons to satellite clinics.

The twin-engine plane was heading for Lewiston, Idaho.

Sabin is a Chehalis resident who flies as a contract pilot for the company. Forty-three year-old Rinta is a laser technician and also lives in Chehalis. Dr. Shenk, 69, lives in Woodland. He is an opthamologist and surgeon, according to Eldredge.

Search and rescue teams were out until about 8 p.m. last night driving the back roads with a portable direction finder box, trying to pick up a signal from the aircraft.

Dan Foster, of Farm and Forest Helicopters out of Napavine, searched from the air yesterday with two of his employees.

Brown said a helicopter went up for a short time this morning again, but the weather was too dangerous for it to stay in the air.

The command post for the search effort is at Strom Field in Morton.

More soon.

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This news story was updated at 12:45 p.m. today Tuesday Oct. 26, 2010

By Sharyn  L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter

Search and rescue teams are on standby waiting for more specific information about a signal picked up near Mossyrock from a missing plane that took off from the Chehalis-Centralia Airport this morning.

Lewis County Sheriff’s Office Chief Civil Deputy Stacy Brown said she learned about an hour ago the Cessna appeared to be somewhere in the Mossyrock area.

The twin-engine plane is owned by Chehalis-based Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute and is reportedly carrying the pilot and two passengers.

The Cessna 340 took off from Chehalis about 7:30 a.m. heading for Lewiston, Idaho, according to a spokesperson for the aviation division of Washington State Department of Transportation.

At about 7:45 a.m., the pilot reported to air traffic control one engine was down and they were headed back to Chehalis, spokesperson Nisha Marvel said. They were somewhere between Packwood and Morton at that time, and lost radio contact, she said.

The aviation division of Washington State Department of Transportation is coordinating the air search.

“The weather situation is not too favorable,” Marvel said.

Marvel said two helicopters were flying out over the area. However, Allyn Roe, manager of the Chehalis-Centralia Airport said one local helicopter pilot was in the air – Farm and Forest Helicopters out of Napavine – and they were waiting for a Navy helicopter coming from Whidbey Island.

Brown said just after noon time, the sheriff’s office was waiting for a Navy aircraft to “triangulate” a signal coming from around Mossyrock.

Search teams coordinated by the sheriff’s office are on standby, she said.

“We’re on the ground, waiting to find out where it’s at,” Brown said. “It’s such a large area.”

Brown is asking that anyone who has seen or heard anything that might help to call the sheriff’s office at 360-748-9286.

Pacific Cataract and Laser Institute keeps a handful of planes at the Chehalis airport, to fly surgeons to satellite clinics. At the end of 2007, they were making about 300 flights out of there each year, according to an employee

More later.

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This news story was updated at 12:50 p.m.