A rescue team sent to the site of a December plane crash was forced to turn back due to extreme weather in Idaho.
The crew attempted Saturday to reach the remains of an aircraft that plummeted into the central Idaho mountains, according to Valley County Sheriff Patti Bolen, who spoke with the Associated Press.
Bolen told AP recovery officials were scheduled to meet on Monday to figure out how to get to the site of the crash and extract the bodies of the family of five who died as a result of the incident.
The single-engine Beech Bonanza went down on Dec. 1 according to AP. Authorities cut their investigation short without having located the aircraft on Dec. 12, citing difficult weather.
Family and friends found the battered small plane on Friday, following an exhaustive hunt for passengers Dale Smith, his daughter Amber, her fiancé Jonathan Norton and Smith's son, Daniel, and wife, Sheree.
Members of the volunteer search group told the Idaho Statesman the mixture of relief at finding the plane and sadness that no passengers aboard lived through the crash.
"I was holding out hope," resident Sylvia Leach told the Statesman. "I have heard of the unimaginable. I live in these mountains also and fly, so I also know that side of it. But with this family - their spirit, their amazing hearts - I thought that if there were to be a miracle, it would be for them."
