Pilot's body ID'd as Quentin Aschoff, 67, of Bend, Ore.

Staff Writer

The entrance to Erie Municipal Airport. (Cliff Grassmick / Staff Photographer)

Hikers in Park County last week discovered the wreckage of an aircraft that vanished last April after departing Erie for a destination in Utah, officials said.

The body of the plane's pilot, Quentin Aschoff, 67, of Bend, Ore., was found inside the crashed Cessna 210 on Mosquito Pass, according to Park County Undersheriff Dave Wohlers.

Officials with the Park County Coroner's Office said Monday that they were able to use fingerprints to positively identify Aschoff's body.

Aschoff took off from Erie Municipal Airport at 8 a.m. April 2 and was scheduled to arrive in Richfield, Utah, around 11:30 a.m. Richfield is about 225 miles west of Grand Junction.

Officials said Aschoff was planning to follow Interstate 70, but, according to radar, diverted east after reaching the Loveland Pass and began following U.S. 285. The last radar contact with the plane was near Grant, Colo., and cell phone signals ceased about 30 minutes after that.

The plane did not have an operating transponder and Aschoff did not file a flight plan.

Mosquito Pass is about 30 miles southwest of Grant between Leadville and Fairplay in Park County.

Civil Air Patrol aircrews flew 24 searches with 10 aircraft, covering a search area from the last radar contact to the Utah border, with the search concentrated around the ridges north and northwest of South Park, the routes between Kenosha Pass, and I-70 at Silverton and Copper Mountain.

The search was called off after two weeks.

Wohlers said the Federal Aviation Administration will determine the cause of the crash, and that investigators were being taken to the crash site on Monday.

Mitchell Byars: 303-473-1329, byarsm@dailycamera.com or twitter.com/mitchellbyars