Weather Hampers Effort to Reach Site of Plane Crash

High winds Monday continued to hamper efforts to recover a body believed to be that of a Van Nuys man whose plane crashed in the San Jacinto Mountains near Palm Springs last week.

David Newzil, 25, was flying from Phoenix to Burbank Airport carrying documents and film for Wings Express Inc. of Van Nuys. Rescue workers reported seeing the charred wreckage of a plane on Mt. San Jacinto in Riverside County late Saturday, but high winds Sunday and Monday prevented them from recovering or identifying the body.

Authorities said the plane was so badly burned that its identification numbers were not visible and that they could not determine if the wreckage was the single-engine Piper Lance PA-32 that Newzil was flying.

“Right now we think we know, but we’re not sure,” Lt. Col. Hank Covington of the Civil Air Patrol said.

A witness who reported seeing a fireball in the Mt. San Jacinto area called the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department about 10:30 p.m. Thursday. Sheriff’s deputies said they notified the Federal Aviation Administration, which confirmed that an aircraft en route from Phoenix to Burbank was missing.

The wreckage was spotted by members of the Riverside County Mountain Rescue Unit at 4:15 p.m. Saturday near the 8,500-foot level on the north slope of Mt. San Jacinto, authorities said.

The search had to be suspended because of darkness. Rescuers were flown Sunday to the mountain by helicopter and managed to reach the crash site, according to the Sheriff’s Department. They were able to confirm that a male died in the crash but could not identify him. They could not retrieve the body because of high winds and blowing snow, authorities said.

The high winds continued Monday. “It was blowing the helicopter all over the place, so they couldn’t get in there,” Covington said.

Authorities said the effort will resume this morning if winds subside.

Volunteer pilots from the Civil Air Patrol began searching for Newzil Friday, methodically crisscrossing areas from the California border to Burbank. There were 40 planes involved in the search Saturday, along with more than 100 ground-support personnel, Covington said.