A pair of men who were 4-wheeling outside of Leadville Friday first thought they saw a patch of snow but later distinguished it as wreckage of a downed airplane, beginning the end of a 3 month long search for a Oregon pilot and his Cessna 210 single-engine plane. 

9News reports Pat Wester and Jon Cook were on a 4-wheeler day trip on Mosquito Pass when they spotted 67 year old Quentin Aschoff’s plane. It had been missing since April when it went off radar on trip between the Erie Municipal Airport and Richfield, Utah. The Bend, Oregon pilot did not have a flight plan nor a an operating transponder.There was an initial two week search effort involving 10 separate aircraft canvassing 120 square miles of land but nothing was found. Aschoff’s body was removed from the plane by authorities and identified using fingerprints on Friday. His family was immediately notified.

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