WSDOT searching for missing plane in rugged forest near Queets

The Washington State Department of Transportation is looking for a missing plane in the rugged forest land near Queets that abruptly dropped off the radar on Monday night, said WSDOT.

WSDOT Air Search and Rescue was alerted of a missing 2006 Cessna T182 Turbo Skylane piloted by Rod Collen.

Search efforts started that night and have included air searches on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. Law enforcement and others have also been patrolling roadways in the last known position.

Collen left the Tacoma Narrows Airport at 5:35 p.m. on Monday and a few minutes into the flight the plane’s Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system was either turned off or malfunctioned and the plane was no longer visible on normal tracking systems the air traffic controllers use.

With the specialized radar forensics team, primary radar returns were located that showed the aircraft near the coast between Lake Quinault and Queets. The final radar plots showed the aircraft made a rapid descent to the ground. Collen was the only one in the plane.

No signal has been detected from the plane’s Emergency Locator Transmitter since it went off the radar, but search officials have narrowed the search area to a 36-square-mile section of forest land with rugged terrain.

The snow on the ground has stalled searchers’ ability to spot the plane from the air. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Deputies and Quinault Natural Resources crews have patrolled roads near the areas but the section is too large to send in ground search crews until the search can be narrowed to a more specific site.

The search remains active, but crews are waiting for new developments or a weather change before flying search aircraft again.

WSDOT asks anyone who thinks they saw or heard the plane on Monday, or spotted anything in the area, should call the State Emergency Operations Center at 800-258-5990.

The plane’s tail number is N24289. At this time search officials do not need volunteers to conduct either air or land searches as that may overlap already searched areas.

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