The four victims of a June 27 plane crash near Dixon died of blunt force injuries sustained in the wreck, according to the Lake County Coroner Office.
According to the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, the victims’ bodies were taken to the Montana State Crime Lab to be examined by the state medical examiner on July 1. Toxicology results are still pending.
The crash is believed to have occurred around 4 p.m. on June 27, roughly two and a half hours after the plane containing pilot Sonny Kless, 25, Brian Williams, 28, Melissa Weaver, 23 and Erika Hoefer, 27, left Kalispell for a sightseeing trip. Their trip took them from Glacier National Park, over Flathead Lake and to the Flathead River. The plane disappeared from radar at 4:02 p.m. west of Moiese, near the National Bison Range.
Weaver and Hoefer were reporters for the Daily Inter Lake.
Crews, family and friends searched on land, in the air and on the water for the missing plane for nearly three days until a U.S. Homeland Security pilot spotted the plane on June 30 near its last radar position on a rugged hillside outside of the bison range. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.