Community Police & Fire
Searchers find pilot, plane that left Gig Harbor airport more than month ago
Search-and-rescue crews found a Cessna airplane Monday near Queets that flew out of Tacoma Narrows Airport on March 6 and had been missing for 36 days.
Pilot Rod Collen, 52, of Tacoma was inside the aircraft and likely died upon impact, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation, which is charged with coordinating aerial search and rescue within the state.
Fell off radar 45 minutes into flight
Collen flew out of Tacoma Narrows Airport at 5:35 p.m. The 2006 Cessna T182 Turbo Skylane abruptly fell off radar 45 minutes later. The Transportation Department and partners searched a 36-square-mile wooded area for two weeks before suspending the effort on March 20 after finding no trace of the pilot or plane.
A state Department of Transportation search-and-rescue member investigates the wreckage of Rodney Collen’s plane after it was found Monday, April 10, 2023.
On Friday, April 7, crews returned to the area using a new hypothesis of what may have happened to the plane provided by a search-and-rescue partner in British Columbia. Search conditions had improved greatly because of warmer weather. Snow had made earlier efforts to see a white plane difficult.
Search resumed on April 7
During the April 7 flight, crews noticed items of interest they couldn’t identify from the air. On the morning of April 10, a team from WSDOT Air Search and Rescue, Quinault Emergency Management and a K9 team from the King County Search and Rescue Office hiked into the area and found the aircraft in densely wooded terrain. It was difficult to spot and not easily accessible.
The Grays Harbor County Sheriff’s Office handled the recovery. The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating why the plane went down, which could take 12 to 18 months.
Details about the search, including photos and daily updates, were provided on the WSDOT blog.
Collen and his fiancée bought two forested acres in Lakebay on Key Peninsula in 2018. They built a weekend cabin, called the Mushroom House, shaped like a toadstool.
Figurines salvaged from Point Defiance Park’s former storybook-themed attraction Never Never Land populate the woods. The News Tribune and Key Peninsula News wrote feature stories about the Mushroom House.