The airplane collided with wooded terrain within a canyon at about 1453 Mountain time. The student pilot, flight instructor and private pilot-rated passenger sustained fatal injuries. The airplane was consumed by a post-impact fire. Visual conditions prevailed.
The student pilot was enrolled in the KLM Flight Academy flight training program and was undergoing a phase check. The airplane did not return at the expected time, and became the subject of an Alert Notice about 1800. The Civil Air Patrol, utilizing radar data and network-based cell phone signal analysis, located the wreckage at about 2100 on September 14.
