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| Jimmy Hill |
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| Crash Site |
A small plane believed to be carrying five people that
departed from the Gadsden airport Saturday morning crashed into a reservoir in
southwestern Colorado and authorities say all are feared dead.
The single-engine Socata TBM700 was flying
from Bartlesville, Okla., to Montrose, about 180 miles southwest of Denver,
when it went down Saturday afternoon.
Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Ian Gregor said the plane
crashed in Ridgeway Reservoir about 25 miles south of Montrose just before 2
p.m. Saturday. Rescue efforts started Saturday afternoon but were suspended
shortly after sundown until Sunday morning.
Whitmore said no one is believed to have survived, but no victims have been
recovered from the aircraft, which was located about 90 feet from shore in 60
to 90 feet of water.
The identities of
the occupants were being withheld until relatives could be notified. As
recovery efforts continued in Colorado to recover the bodies, tributes began
appearing among friends of pilot Jimmy Hill and passengers Katrina Barksdale,
her two sons Kobe and Xander, and a cousin, Seth McDuffie. Hill, the president
of Gadsden Tool and owner of the Airport Café in Rainbow City was reported to
have been piloting the plane with his 4 passangers en route to a spring break
ski trip in Colorado.
Online flight
records show the plane took off from Northeast Alabama Regional Airport in
Gadsden, Ala. at 8:30 a.m. Saturday morning It left Bartlesville at 12:12 p.m.
en route to Montrose, Colo..
According
to the FAA registry, the aircraft is a fixed-wing, single-engine 1996 model and
the N number is registered to Gadsden Aviation LLC in Rainbow City. State
records list the company Gadsden Tool as the only member of the Gadsden
Aviation LLC.
Workers located the
fusealage Sunday but are having to bring in special equipment to recover it. Gadsden
residents gathered Sunday night at Mitchell Elementary School to remember their
friends who died in the Saturday crash.
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