A Grant County Search and Rescue team located the aircraft Friday morning and confirmed the death, said Lisa Clark, a Bureau of Land Management information officer for the Falls Fire. The single-engine tanker, a small and nimble plane that looks like a crop duster, was located in steep, forested terrain on Friday morning after the search was suspended at nightfall the day before, Clark said.
The plane contracted by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management went missing Thursday. The Falls Fire, near the town of Seneca on the edge of the Malheur National Forest, has grown to 219 square miles and is 55% contained, the government website InciWeb shows.
Thomas Kyle-Milward, spokesperson for Northwest Incident Management Team 8, said authorities received a report of a missing aircraft around 6:50 p.m. Thursday. The pilot was the only person on board.
The FAA and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the cause of the crash.
Tracking the Falls and Telephone fires
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