Officials suspend seach for missing plane crashed near Queets

Update 3/20:

The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) called off its search for a missing plane that went off the radar 13 days ago.

“WSDOT, who coordinated the search alongside several municipalities and partners, has exhausted all available resources, leads and areas to search based on the information provided to date,” WSDOT said in their announcement. “Recently released aerial search flight paths show extensive effort in the targeted search area by crews to locate the missing plane.”

Investigators believed the plane was somewhere in a 36-square-mile section of forest land near the coast, between Lake Quinault and Queets.

Quinault Tribal Nation emergency management crews flew a UAS drone over the search area but could not find anything of interest.

The family has been kept informed of search activities and has been briefed about this decision.

Original 3/13:

The Washington State Department of Transportation is searching for a missing plane that went down in a forest outside of Grays Harbor, Wash., that abruptly dropped off the radar Monday, March 6.

The missing 2006 Cessna T182 Turbo Skylane and its pilot Rod Collen went missing after Collen left the Tacoma Narrows Airport around 5:35 p.m. March 6 and dropped off of the radar abruptly.

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WSDOT Air Search and Rescue was notified of the situation and began rescue operations, including air searches on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday when the weather permitted safe flying conditions. Law enforcement has also been patrolling roadways in the last known position area as well.

According to the report from WSDOT, the plane’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system was either turned off or malfunctioned, and the plane was no longer visible on normal tracking systems the air traffic controllers use.

With a specialized radar forensics team, a general idea of where the radar could be located placed the aircraft near the coast between Lake Quinault and Queets. The final radar plots show the aircraft made a very rapid descent to the ground. Collen was the only one on the plane.

No signal has been detected from the plane’s Emergency Locator Transmitter since it went off radar, but search officials have narrowed the search area to a 36-square-mile section of forest land with rugged terrain and some logging activity.

Snow on the ground has hampered the rescue personnel’s ability to spot the plane from the air. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Deputies and Quinault Natural Resources crews have patrolled roads near the areas, but the section is too large and rugged to send in ground search crews until the search can be narrowed to a more specific site.

The search remains active, and updates on the search will be posted on the WSDOT blog.