By Martha Bellisle
The Associated Press
SEATTLE — Ground search crews recovered two bodies Wednesday from the wreckage of a small airplane that crashed into a Washington state mountainside over the weekend, forcing a teenager who survived the impact to hike her way off a rugged slope to safety.
Deputies and volunteers who reached the wreckage found it burned out and smoldering.
The two victims haven’t been formally identified, but 16-year-old survivor Autumn Veatch has said her stepgrandparents, Leland and Sharon Bowman of Marion, Mont., were killed in the crash.
The plane, piloted by Leland Bowman, was bringing Veatch home from a Montana visit.
A National Transportation Safety Board team was expected to arrive today to investigate.
The 16-year-old Veatch was released from the hospital Tuesday, and she provided searchers with the clues they needed to find the wreck.
A different set of searchers Wednesday located what was believed to be the wreckage of an airplane that took off from Minnesota with two people on board who were scheduled to arrive at Orcas Island on Saturday.
Officials said they haven’t made a positive identification of the plane or the occupants found east of Bellingham, but there did not appear to be any survivors. LaBoe also said there was no evidence the two crashes were related.
Veatch was released Tuesday evening from Three Rivers Hospital in Brewster and arrived home in Bellingham shortly before midnight.
Family friends had gathered in anticipation of a happy homecoming, bringing balloons and flowers to the apartment of the teen’s father, David Veatch.
‘Sad and happy’
“We just want to show her and her family that we care and we love her,” said one friend, Amber Shockey. She added that Veatch had said “she was happy to be coming home.”
“I mean, all in one, it’s pretty much sad and happy,” Shockey said. “It’s everything. It’s astonishing that she could do this.”
Bruised by the impact, singed by the fire that accompanied the crash, fearing an explosion and knowing she couldn’t help the other victims, Autumn Veatch headed down the steep slope, following a creek to a river.
She spent a night on a sand bar and sipped small amounts of the flowing water, worrying she might get sick if she drank more.
She followed the river to a trail and the trail to a highway. Two men driving by stopped and picked her up Monday afternoon, bringing her — about two full days after the crash — to the safety of a general store in tiny Mazama, near the east entrance of North Cascades National Park.
“We crashed, and I was the only one that made it out,” she told a 9-1-1 operator, after a store employee called for her. “I have a lot of burns on my hands, and I’m kind of covered in bruises and scratches and stuff.”
Later, she managed to joke from her hospital bed about how it was a good thing her dad made her watch the television show “Survivor.”
“She’s got an amazing story, and I hope she gets to tell it soon,” said Okanogan County Sheriff Frank Rogers, who had interviewed Veatch and relayed details of her ordeal to The Associated Press.
According to Rogers, the Beechcraft A-35 was flying over north-central Washington on its way from Kalispell, Mont., to Lynden when it entered a cloud bank. Then the clouds suddenly parted, and from her seat behind the cockpit, Veatch could see the mountain and trees ahead.
Leland Bowman tried to pull up — to no avail.
They struck the trees, and the plane plummeted to the ground and caught fire.
“When they came out of the clouds, she said it was obvious they were too low,” Rogers said.
“They crashed right into the trees and hit the ground. She tried to do what she could to help her grandparents, but she couldn’t because of the fire.”
Autumn Veatch’s boyfriend, Newton Goss, also 16, said he and his mother were supposed to pick her up from the airport Saturday. He and Autumn were texting back and forth when his final text to her failed to go through, he said.
Later, he heard about the missing plane.
“I had all the hope in the world that she was going to make it out fine,” he said.
Goss said Tuesday he had spoken to Autumn several times since her ordeal.
“She wanted McDonald’s. How do you go through that situation and just go, ‘I really want McDonald’s right now’?” he said. “She’s being really light-hearted like she usually is with me. That’s reassuring.”
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Associated Press Reporters Gene Johnson in Seattle, Alina Hartounian in Phoenix and Manuel Valdes in Bellingham contributed to this report.
