This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday was investigating a weekend plane crash that killed a Mormon bishop and his two children in rural southwestern Utah, police said.
Authorities found the bodies of Randall Wells, 41, and his two children Asher, 8, and Sarah, 3, on Monday in Iron County near its border with Garfield County. The terrain where the plane went down is "rugged" with hills like "little mountains" lined with a sagebrush and trees, said Garfield County sheriff's spokeswoman Denise Dustrup.
The three were the only people aboard their single-engine Cessna 172, discovered in lower Bear Valley.
Wells leaves behind a wife, Kristin Wells, who, according to a fundraising page, is 20 weeks pregnant and found out last week that she is expecting a girl. In one day, the GoFundMe page raised nearly $100,000 for the widow, who "is now tasked with the heartbreaking job of planning three funerals at once."
Randall Wells was the bishop of the LDS Church's Mount Jordan 3rd Ward in Sandy.
A search party of more than 100 began looking for the man and his children on foot, horseback, ATVs, snowmobiles and in helicopters and airplanes and included crews from Garfield, Iron, Sevier and Piute counties and Wells' friends and family members.
The plane had taken off Saturday from a Phoenix airport en route to Salt Lake County, Dastrup said.
The aircraft disappeared about 17 miles northwest of Wilson Peak about 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
Searchers initially spotted the wreckage from the air at 11:05 a.m. Monday, and ground crews reached it about 45 minutes later.
Bishops in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints serve as lay leaders of Mormon wards, or congregations, and tend to their members' spiritual and temporal needs.
Twitter: @mnoblenews