Iron County sheriff's Detective Sgt. Jody Edwards tells the Salt Lake Tribune that sheriff's deputies were able to reach the plane after the Sunday afternoon crash. Edwards says they confirmed that the pilots had died. The cause of the crash is unknown.
The pilots were dropping retardant on the 5,000-acre White Rock Fire, which began burning Friday night after a lightning strike in eastern Nevada. The fire spread across the Utah line Saturday night, but most of the blaze remains in Nevada.
The Bureau of Land Management says in a statement that the P-2V tanker went down shortly before 1:00 p.m. The plane is owned by Neptune Aviation Services, a Missoula, Mont.-based company.
