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Wendover • A plane attempting to land at the Wendover Airport on Wednesday afternoon crashed, killing all four men onboard.
The 2:45 p.m. crash involved a Cessna Skyhawk 172, a single-engine, fixed-wing aircraft, said Tooele County Sheriff Frank Park.
According to airport director Jim Petersen, a construction worker leaving the airport in his car saw the plane having trouble landing. He said the pilot was attempting a second circle around the airport when the plane crashed.
"One of the construction workers saw him on his side and then in his rearview mirror he saw a puff of dust," Petersen said.
Sheriff's spokesman Wade Mathews said crosswinds may have played a factor in the crash, though an official cause has not been determined. Wind gusts of 30 mph were reported at the airport at the time of the crash.
The plane went down on airport property 400 feet short of the runway, Petersen said. The pilot had made radio communication with the airport that he was landing for fuel.
When emergency crews arrived, the plane was upside down but not on fire.
On Thursday morning, Matthews identified three of the four victims: the pilot, Lincoln Marshal Dastrup, 57, of Salt Lake City; Justin Michael Yates, 37, of Lehi; and Chad A. Wade, 38, of South Jordan. Authorities withheld the identity of the fourth victim, a man from India, because they had not yet contacted next of kin.
Jerry Paetsch, the operations supervisor for G&B Flight Academy in western Woods Cross, confirmed the plane was rented from G&B on Tuesday. He characterized the pilot as seasoned, someone who had "been with the flight school for a long, long time and had flown a lot of airplanes."
"He really knew his stuff," Paetsch said. "I think the weather got him."
Paetsch said the plane departed from Skypark Airport in Bountiful between noon and 1 p.m Tuesday. The men were planning to go to St. George for a business meeting and then return to Provo on Wednesday at 2 p.m.
"We don't know why he was in Wendover," Paetsch said.
Paetsch said the FAA called him at about 3 p.m. and told him about the plane crash.
The FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board were investigating the accident, with the NTSB acting as the lead agency.
The Wendover Airport is the only remaining fully operational airport of the World War II era, according to its website. During World War II, it was an airbase and operated as a training site for, among other planes, the Enola Gay and Bockscar. The crews of those planes were responsible for being first to drop nuclear weapons, on Japan in 1945.