The remains of two men have been found following a plane crash east of Aspen, Colorado.
A veteran pilot and an oral surgeon, both from New York, are presumed dead after the crash on 4 July, officials confirmed on Sunday night.
Pending results from further post-mortem examination, Pitkin County’s chief deputy coroner has identified the remains of the plane’s occupants as Ruben Cohen and David Zara.
The small six-seater, single-engine Beechcraft B36 aircraft came down east of Midway Pass near the Continental Divide.
The Pitkin County Regional Emergency Dispatch Center received a phone call on 4 July, around 10.30am, with a report from someone who said their friend was late arriving at the airport in Des Moines, Iowa.
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The caller explained that the plane had left Aspen Pitkin County airport the previous day, at 4.30pm. The caller said they had tracked the flight path of the plane and saw that it had ended approximately 30 miles east of Aspen.
The Pitkin County Sheriff’s deputy worked with the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center, the State of Colorado’s Division of Fire Prevention and Control, volunteer-led Mountain Rescue Aspen, and the Colorado Army National Guard High-Altitude ARNG Aviation Training Site (HAATS) to find the wreckage near Midway Pass.
The Colorado Army National Guard helped lift the passenger remains via helicopter from the crash site, located 9 miles east of Aspen in the Hunter-Fryingpan Wilderness, in the White River National Forest.
David Zara was a professional pilot who founded charter plane companies Tradewind Aviation and Zen Air.
“Tradewind Aviation is devastated to hear of the loss of our friend and colleague David Zara this past Saturday,” the company said in a statement to The Independent.
“David was incredibly charismatic, thoughtful, and had a passion for flying. He will be deeply missed.”
Ruben Cohen ran a dental surgery on Park Avenue, Manhattan, and frequently travelled “to Africa, Central America and other parts of the world to provide free surgical treatment to children born with facial deformities. He was involved in the 9/11 rescue efforts at Ground Zero in 2001 and worked in the Israeli Defense Force Field Medical Hospital in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake”, states his company website.
The National Transportation Safety Board is carrying out an investigation into the plane crash. The Independent has contacted Pitkin County Sheriff's Office for further information on the incident.
