4 dead in crash of flood-survey plane near border
Alicia A. CaldwellThe wreckage of a plane carrying Mexican and U.S. officials checking on border-area flooding was found Wednesday in a mountainous area two days after it disappeared, and officials said all four people aboard were killed.
The dead included the leaders of the U.S. and Mexican sections of the International Boundary Waters Commission, the executive director of an El Paso-area government council and the pilot, the commission said in a written statement.
The plane was reported missing after it did not land on time Monday in Presidio, a border town about 250 miles southeast of El Paso. The wreckage was spotted by air shortly after noon in Mexico's Sierra Madre mountains. The cause of the crash isn't known, and it's unclear what agency will lead the investigation.
Killed were IBWC leaders Carlos Marin of El Paso and Arturo Herrera of Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Also on board were Jake Brisbin Jr. of the Rio Grande Council of Government and Matthew Peter Juneau, the pilot of the chartered Cessna 421, the IBWC said.
The commissioners were headed to inspect flooding in Presidio and Ojinaga, a Mexican city across the Rio Grande, IBWC officials said. The flight plan included a detour to Mexico so the men could see a reservoir where weeks of rain have prompted Mexican officials to release water into a river that feeds the Rio Grande.
The crash site is accessible only by foot, and Mexican authorities plan to set out for it Thursday with guidance from a Border Patrol pilot who helped locate it, said Bill Brooks, a Border Patrol spokesman.
The IBWC is an joint U.S.-Mexican agency responsible for maintaining the border and levees on the part of the Rio Grande that forms the boundary.
President Bush appointed Marin commissioner in 2006. Herrera, a native of Mexico City, has run the IBWC's Mexican section since 1989. Before taking over the Rio Grande Council of Governments, Brisbin was Presidio County judge and mayor of the town of Marfa.