WHIDBEY ISLAND, Wash. — The U.S. Coast Guard has released the names of all 10 people who were on a floatplane that crashed off Whidbey Island on Sunday.
Nine adults and one 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 — a 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, Carl Maxey Center in Spokane, according to The Spokesman-Review.
Many people have been sending tributes to Williams, including state Sen. Andy Billig who serves the 3rd legislative district of Spokane.
He said in part about Williams in a Facebook post, “Sandy was a leader in the best sense of the word. She worked with others to create a vision for positive change, crafted a plan to achieve that change. Then, she dug in to the do the work 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 a driving force to create and pass the bill to transition surplus WSDOT land in East Central from vacant lots into badly needed housing. You will be missed, Sandy. RIP.”
Ross Mickel was the owner of the eastside-based Ross Andrew Winery. His wife, Lauren Hilty, and their 22-month-old son, Remy, were also on the plane, according to a report from The Seattle Times.
All victims were identified early Tuesday after the Coast Guard had suspended its active search for nine of 10 crash victims on Monday afternoon.
The person whose body was recovered at the scene was transferred to the Island County coroner and has not yet been positively identified. It is Coast Guard policy not to release the names of the deceased or missing until at least 24 hours after the next of kin have been notified.
“The Coast Guard offers its deepest sympathies to those who lost a loved one in this tragedy,” said Cmdr. Xochitl Castañeda, the search and rescue mission coordinator for the crash.
The Coast Guard said in a statement that it had covered 1,283 linear nautical miles and saturated an area of more than 2,100 square nautical miles during its search.
The single-engine float plane that crashed was a DHC-3 Turbine Otter, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. The plane is about 200 feet deep in the water, according to South Whidbey Fire/EMS.
While the Coast Guard will hand over its findings to the NTSB to investigate the crash, if more debris washes ashore as they expect it will, Coast Guard search crews would likely return.
Meanwhile, experts are sharing what might have gone wrong with the floatplane as it made its way to Renton.
Kathleen Bangs is a former commercial and floatplane pilot. She said she looked at the FlightAware flight tracker data and the plane plummeted 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 appears this airplane hit the ocean totally out of control,” said Bangs.
Bangs said among the things investigators will look at is whether the pilot was incapacitated, if the plane struck a bird or drone and how well the plane was maintained.
This is not the first time seaplanes have crashed in Western Washington.
In 2016, a De Havilland DHC-2 Beaver carrying four people crashed at the south end of Lopez Island.
All the passengers were thrown into the water, but all of them were saved by nearby boaters.
In July 2020, there were two seaplane crashes in Lake Washington. The first happened on July 1 off the shore near Lakeside Avenue. Two people were on board. Both survived.
The second happened on July 28, near Carillon Point in Kirkland.
That pilot also survived.
©2022 Cox Media Group