Authorities believe plane wreckage decades old: Residents help with probe into airplane wreckage find

The Fremont County Sheriff's Office has continued its investigation into the discovery of an airplane's tail section Wednesday in the Willow Creek drainage area near Jeffrey City.

Sheriff's Capt. Ryan Lee said he has spoken about the tail section with former deputies who worked in the area in the 1960s.

"They, in turn, were able to make contact with some of the area's residents from that era," Lee said. "A former resident recalled a collision in that immediate area and that he actually assisted with the removal of three deceased victims from wreckage back in the early 1950s."

Other residents will be contacted Friday for insight into the incident.

Lee said he still is waiting for word from Federal Aviation Administration officials, who indicated that they would have to do a hand search in their archival records for information about the tail section, which will take some time.

"We just want to make a positive conclusion that what we are looking at has been reported and is not some wreckage from long ago that went overlooked," Lee said. "So far we have not seen anything on paper, however we are fairly confident that it is something that was known about and investigated about 60 years ago."

Lee said a Fremont County citizen made the initial discovery of the tail section Wednesday. The individual described the object as "rusted and maybe older," according to the sheriff's office dispatch log.

"The tail is of a small aircraft with a complete tail number attached," Lee said.

Source:  http://dailyranger.com

JEFFREY CITY — Wyoming authorities believe a portion of the wreckage of an airplane found Wednesday near Jeffrey City is decades old.

Fremont County Sheriff's Capt. Ryan Lee says a tail section may have come from a plane that crashed in the 1950s, but no further information is available.

Authorities are working with the Federal Aviation Administration to track down information about the wreckage.

Officers are also contacting residents in the area to see if they know what happened.