The three-day search for a group of hunters who vanished in a plane crash off North Carolina has ended, after divers recovered the final seven bodies from a cabin sitting 55 feet below the surface.
Four East Carteret High School students were among the eight who died when the plane crashed into the ocean 4 miles off Drum Inlet, around 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 13, officials said.
The Carteret County Sheriff’s Office announced the last of the bodies had been found in Feb. 16 Facebook post.
Two bodies have been positively identified and turned over to family members for funeral arrangements, officials said.
“The remains of the passengers have all been examined at the Carteret Health Care, Morehead City, N.C., and are in the process of being transported to East Carolina University Brody School of Medicine in Greenville, N.C., for further examination and identification,” the sheriff’s office said.
“The sheriff’s office has collected numerous aircraft parts including the flight data recorder, which will be turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board who are investigating the incident.”
Searchers found the fuselage of the Pilatus PC-12 single-engine passenger aircraft about 3 miles off the coast, officials said at a Feb. 15 press conference.
An air traffic controller at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point was the first to report a possible crash on Feb. 13, when he saw an aircraft “behaving erratically on radar” just before it vanished completely, Coast Guard officials said.
Debris was found floating as far as 15 miles offshore, searchers said Feb. 14.
The pilot, his son and six passengers were returning from a weekend youth duck hunting trip in Hyde County when the plane went down on the way to Beaufort, N.C., officials said.
The teens were identified as: Jonathan Kole McInnis, 15 of Sea Level, Noah Lee Styron, 15 of Cedar Island, Michael Daily Shepard, 15 of Atlantic, and Jacob Nolan Taylor, 16 of Atlantic.
Adults aboard the plane were: pilot Ernest Durwood Rawls, 67, and his son Jeffrey Worthington Rawls, 28, both of Greenville, N.C.; Stephanie Ann McInnis Fulcher, 42, of Sea Level; and Douglas Hunter Parks, 45, of Sea Level.
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