MOAB, Utah, Oct. 2, 2023 (Gephardt Daily) — Grand County officials are now confirming four people were killed Sunday night when the plane they were in crashed near Moab.
In a brief statement released just after midnight Monday, the Grand County Sheriff’s Office updated an earlier press release, saying, “Rescue efforts were completed. Four occupants unfortunately did not survive the crash. Further information will be provided as soon as family members have been notified.”
In the initial press statement, the sheriff’s office said emergency dispatchers received a call about 8:30 p.m. from a witness who saw “a plane going into the ground shortly after taking off from the Canyonlands Airfield north of Moab.”
Sheriff’s deputies, Moab fire crews and emergency medical technicians responded and located the aircraft, the sheriff’s office said.
Gephardt Daily will update this story as more information becomes available.
There was a similar accident in this model aircraft on September 2, 2023 at the Prescott AZ airport. There were four people on board and they had just refueled, so the airplane was heavy. The elevation of the Prescott airport is about 5000′, and the elevation of the Canyonlands airport is 4579′. But at Canyonlands, the density altitude was around 5500′, given the temperature of about 61F, dewpoint of about 32F, and station pressure of around 25.55″ of Hg. Pilots from lower elevation airports may not understand the need to lean the fuel/air mixture for maximum takeoff performance and to account for the density altitude of the airport when calculating expected takeoff performance.