COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - A search and rescue group is hoping to enlist the help of the Colorado Army National Guard to look for the wreckage of a plane carrying a prominent Alberta oil engineer and his wife.
The aircraft, piloted by Gerrit Maureau, 67, of Calgary and carrying his wife, Dr. Sheila Malm, 65, crashed last Saturday in a mountainous area near Trinidad, Colo., about 320 kilometres south of Denver.
Steve Sperry, a spokesman for El Paso County Search and Rescue, says they're hoping to get a National Guard helicopter to fly over the spot near the New Mexico border early next week to get a good fix on where the wreckage is.
He says they now estimate that the wreckage is about 1.5 kilometres further west and about 400 metres higher up the mountain than they first thought.
Sperry says a military pilot who flew over the site earlier this week saw some scorch marks on the mountain, indicating that the plane burst into flames when it hit the steep slope.
A recent snowfall has likely buried the fuselage and Sperry says it may be April or May before they can safely get up the mountain to retrieve the bodies.
