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Silicon Valley couple identified as victims in Wayne County plane crash

A California couple has been identified as the victims who were killed in a small-plane crash last week in southern Utah.

Christian C. Simonsen was the pilot of the Cirrus SR22 small plane that crashed sometime before 11:20 a.m. Friday, May 24. His wife, Lyn Ann Anderson-Simonsen, was the passenger. Both are from Morgan Hill, Calif., a residential community at the southern tip of Silicon Valley.

After calls from witnesses who heard an explosion, crews from the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office found the single-engine aircraft in a remote stretch along Miner’s Mountain Road.

According to a release from the sheriff’s office, the plane had been hovering over the desert above Grover, about 7 miles southeast of Torrey, when people on the ground said it suddenly disappeared.