02/17/09

Late last night Twin Falls County Sheriffs officials where informed of a possible plane crash. Search and rescue spent most of the morning searching for the aircraft.

Just shortly before 11am Twin Falls Deputies and search and rescue located an aircraft west of the Hagerman Fossil Beds.

According to Twin Falls County Lieutenant Daren Brown, "The information we were given, it was a single engine, had a capacity of about six people and was headed to Utah from Caldwell."

Brown said, there was only the pilot on board the aircraft.
The Elmore County Sheriff has confirmed the pilot is Craig Jewitt of Utah. Both Twin Falls and Elmore County offcials say they were told the aircraft went missing Sunday night but were not called to search for the planes untill Monday night.

County deputies where given coordinates from the Salt Lake City Control Tower of where they suspected the small plane may have crashed.

According to Brown, "After receiving the call it took an hour or so to get everybody notified and the ball rolling we had our command post set up and our first search teams went out at shortly after 5am."

The crash was found just inside Elmore County so Twin Falls Officials secured the site and waited for Elmore County Sheriffs to arrive and conduct the investigation. Officials were not allowed to remove the body until aviation authorities were able to conduct their investigation.

Elmore Search and Rescue also located what they believe to be pieces of the craft about a mile away from the main fuselage.
They say NTSB officials will be on scene to investigate the crash on Wednesday.

We will bring you more on this story, as soon as more information becomes available.