Nine adults and a child were on board the plane when it went down at 3:11 p.m. One person was found dead at the scene. The other nine victims are missing and presumed dead. The pilot was Jason Winters. The passengers have been identified as Patricia Hicks, Sandra Williams, Lauren Hilty, Ross Mickel, Remy Mickel — one child, Luke Ludwig, Rebecca Ludwig, Joanne Mera and Gabrielle Hanna. Williams was reportedly a civil rights activist who founded a Black newspaper, The Black Lens, and a community center, the Carl Maxey Center in Spokane, according to The Spokesman-Review. Many people sent tributes to Williams, including state Sen. Andy Billig who serves Spokane’s 3rd Legislative District. He said in part of Williams in a Facebook post, “Sandy was a leader in the best sense of the word. Worked with others to create a vision for positive change, created a plan to achieve that change. Then she dug in to do the job and others lined up to follow her. Her incredible work to create the Carl Maxey Center will leave a legacy of positive impact for generations to come, and she was also the driving force behind the creation and passage of the bill to transition WSDOT surplus land in East Central from vacant lots to residential. which are much needed. You will be missed, Sandy. RIP.” Ross Mickel was the owner of Ross Andrew Winery based on the east side. His wife, Lauren Hilty, and their 22-month-old son, Remy, were also on the plane, according to a Seattle Times report. All victims were located early Tuesday after the Coast Guard suspended an active search for nine of the 10 crash victims Monday afternoon. The person whose body was recovered at the scene was taken to the Island County Medical Examiner and has not yet been positively identified. It is Coast Guard policy not to release the names of the dead or missing until at least 24 hours after next of kin have been notified. “The Coast Guard offers its deepest condolences to those who lost a loved one in this tragedy,” said Cmdr. Xochitl Castañeda, the coordinator of the search and rescue mission for the crash. The Coast Guard said in a statement that during its search it had covered 1,283 linear nautical miles and saturated an area of more than 2,100 square nautical miles. The single-engine plane that crashed was a DHC-3 Turbine Otter, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The plane is about 200 feet deep in water, according to South Whidbey Fire/EMS. While the Coast Guard will turn its findings over to the NTSB to investigate the crash, if more debris washes ashore as they expect, Coast Guard search crews will likely return. Meanwhile, experts share what may have gone wrong with the floatplane as it arrived in Renton. Kathleen Bangs is a former commercial and floatplane pilot. He said he looked at the FlightAware data and the plane fell 700 feet into the water. “Was there some kind of structural failure that happened so suddenly that there was absolutely nothing the pilot could do? Because it looks like that plane hit the ocean completely out of control,” Bangs said. Bangs said among the things investigators will look at are whether the pilot was incapacitated, whether the plane struck a bird or a drone and how well the plane was maintained. This isn’t the first time seaplanes have crashed in Western Washington. In 2016, a De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver carrying four people crashed on the southern tip of Lopez Island. All passengers were thrown into the water, but all were rescued by nearby boatmen. In July 2020, there were two plane crashes on Lake Washington. The first happened on July 1 on the shore near Lakeside Avenue. There were two people on board. Both survived. The second occurred on July 28, near Carillon Point in Kirkland. And that pilot survived. ©2022 Cox Media Group
