VENTURA : 3 Residents Found Dead in Plane Crash

Three Ventura residents were killed and a fourth is presumed dead after their plane crashed on an island near Los Mochis, Mexico, relatives said Wednesday.

John Henri Sugden Jr., 63, a retired school administrator and president of the Ventura Keys Homeowners Assn., was presumed dead after the bodies of his wife, Luanne Sugden, 55, and their friends, Jack and Phyllis Gray, were found on the beach of a deserted island about 30 miles southwest of Los Mochis, said Sugden’s son, Daniel.

The Grays--who were also residents of the Keys--and the Sugdens apparently died in the crash of a light plane owned by Sugden.

The bodies were being returned to Ventura on Wednesday.

The search for the four began after the Pleasant Valley Elementary School District in Camarillo called to ask when Luanne Sugden would return to work. A reading teacher for two schools in the district, she was expected to return the first week in January.

Sugden family members, along with a member of the Gray family, went to Mexico to help in a search covering the area of the group’s flight plan. The four, who were on vacation, had filed a flight plan Dec. 29 that indicated that they were heading for Mazatlan. They never arrived.

During a helicopter search with a Mexican officer, son John Sugden III spotted a fisherman who had gotten an aircraft seat caught in his net.

When they landed on a nearby island, John Sugden III found the bodies, along with a flight log and a camera, Daniel Sugden said.