UTAH COUNTY — UTAH COUNTY — Emergency crews responded to a fatal airplane crash in American Fork Canyon Friday morning.
According to the Utah County Sheriff's Office, the plane went down near Box Elder Peak, north of the city of Alpine, and the Granite Flat campground just before 8:00 AM between the Deer Creek and White Pines trails.
The victims on board the plane were the pilot, Tyson Colby Brummett, 35, of Salt Lake City; Alex Blackhurst Ruegner, 35, of Riverton; and Alex's aunt and uncle Elaine W. Blackhurst, 60, of Riverton and her husband, Douglas Robinson Blackhurst, 62, both of Riverton. They departed from the South Valley Regional Airport in West Jordan.
Brummett was a former professional baseball player who had played with major league teams such as the Philadelphia Phillies and the Toronto Blue Jays.
"We kind of looked at each other and realized that was someone’s family... we needed to do what we could," said Gregg Rawlings, who witnessed the crash while hiking with his two sons. "We took some landmarks of where we saw it go down and we started walking towards those landmarks."
Rawlings and his sons, after making note of where the plane went down, walked back up the trail to an area with cell reception and called 911. They then walked back down the trail, where they learned that all four people on board the aircraft had been killed.
All four bodies have been taken to the medical examiner’s office in Taylorsville.
The cause of the crash is still under investigation.
This is a breaking news story and will continue to be updated as more information becomes available.
