Recovery team returns to site of fatal plane crash east of Aspen
A team of seven Mountain Rescue Aspen volunteers spent Tuesday recovering the remains of two men from New York who died Saturday in a plane crash near Aspen, officials said Tuesday evening.
The men’s Hawker Beechcraft G36 Bonanza airplane went down near the 12,140-foot Midway Pass about 9 miles east of Aspen in the Upper Lost Man area near the Continental Divide. The men have been identified as Ruben Cohen and David Zara.
The MRA team Tuesday also included Pitkin County’s deputy coroner and additional equipment to complete the collection of the men’s remains that was logistically impossible Sunday, according to a news release from the Pitkin County Sheriff’s Office.
National Transportation Safety Board investigators are in the initial stages of looking into the cause of the crash.
The Bonanza took off from Napa, California, at 7:32 a.m. Saturday and touched down at Aspen-Pitkin County Airport at 1:53 p.m., both times local.
The 899-mile flight preceded the Bonanza’s next mission, which departed from the Aspen airport 6:24 p.m. that day for what was supposed to be a 732-mile flight to Des Moines.
