DENVER – The sole occupant of an airplane that crashed in the foothills of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains was found dead at the scene on Sunday.
Authorities received an emergency beacon notification from the downed aircraft just after 8 p.m. Saturday night from an area about 45 miles northwest of Colorado Springs, near the Wigwam Creek hiking trail, according to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office.
The plane was spotted from the air on Sunday morning and crews hiked in to the site to discover that the only person aboard had been killed.
The plane was identified as a single-engine Magnus Fusion 212, a type of sport aircraft.
The crash was in the area of the Lost Creek Wilderness, a 120,000-acre expanse of forest and large, dome-shaped granite outcroppings within Pike National Forest.
No cause was immediately released, and the investigation was turned over to the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration, the sheriff’s office said.
Federal investigators were due to arrive at the scene Monday morning, the NTSB said.
