West Yellowstone, Mont. — Search teams located the site of an airplane crash that killed three people near Yellowstone National Park using the last known location of the smart watch from one of the victims, authorities said Monday.
The single-engine Piper PA-28 aircraft left Montana’s West Yellowstone Airport just before midnight on Thursday, according to Federal Aviation Administration records released Monday.
When the aircraft couldn’t be located, two search planes were dispatched to look for it in the vicinity of the last known location of the watch, the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office said.
The search planes found the downed aircraft about a half-hour later in dense timber just south of the town of West Yellowstone. All three occupants were deceased.
Their bodies were removed from the plane and flown out by helicopter, the office said, and they were turned over to a Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office deputy coroner.
The victims were identified by the sheriff’s office as Robert Conover, 60, of Tennessee; Madison Conover, 23, also of Tennessee; and Kurt Enoch Robey, 55, of Utah.
The cause of the crash wasn’t immediately known. It was under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board.
