The crash of a Cessna-180 early Wednesday morning resulted in the deaths of the plane's two occupants, longtime local pilot Fred "Flea" Coflins and Dolores Thorne, mother of prominent Telluride developer Jordan Thorne.

Unconfirmed reports state that the Cessna took off from Telluride Airport some time after three a.m. on Wednesday, en route to Albuquerque where Ms. Thorne was to board a commercial flight to New York. Weather conditions were normal and airport staff reported no incidents at takeoff. Approximately fifteen minutes later, Collins radioed reporting loss of engine power. The plane went down shortly after Collins' last radio transmission, in steep terrain around timberlin in Blix Basin. Wreckage was spotted at daybreak by search planes, and a Search and Rescue team headed by Marshall Bill Tremaine was immediately dispatched, along with AVALANCHE reporter Luanne Rice.

Collins was a highly experienced pilot, who served three tours in Southeast Asia as a civilian employee of the U.S. Air Force, logging more than 2,000 combat hours in the air. He later ran an air transport company, Free Air, in southern Texas, for six years before moving to Telluride.

Dolores Thorne, a resident of Newport Beach, California, was a popular fixture here for many years. Her New Years Eve "Smuggler's Ball" parties have been a must on Telluride's high society calendar for years.

Marshall Tremaine declined to speculate on the causes of the crash, saying only that he is "Looking into a number of things, not including pilot error, mechanical difficulty, freak weather and acts of God."