2 die in plane crash on Wayne County mountain

The airplane sat upside down on the mountain in remote Wayne County, smoldering.

"There's just a frame," said Tal Ehlers with Wayne County Search and Rescue. "It's just a burned frame."

Two people doing predator control work were killed when the state-owned airplane they were in crashed early Friday morning on Parker Mountain near the town of Loa.

"The pilot and passenger both perished," Ehlers said. The plane caught fire.

Names of the dead were being withheld pending notification of family members.

The single-engine Husky A-1 plane belonged to the Utah Department of Agriculture and was doing predator control work, said Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Allen Kenitzer. The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board were sending investigators to the remote area to try to determine the cause of the crash.

Department of Agriculture spokesman Larry Lewis said the two people on board were federal employees with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's wildlife services program.

"We supply the plane because they're protecting state wildlife and livestock," he said Friday.

The federal employees were doing surveillance work, which is common in Wayne County, Ehlers said.

"I would imagine so with the amount of ranching that goes on in this part of state," he said.

The USDA did not immediately comment on the crash or identify the employees.

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E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com