Autumn Veatch

SEATTLE — Search crews looking for a small plane that crashed in north-central Washington with three people aboard said Tuesday night they have located wreckage in the general area where a crash survivor emerged from the woods.

Aerial searchers spotted the wreckage in the same vicinity where 16-year-old survivor Autumn Veatch emerged from the woods on Monday. However, crews were not able to reach the heavily wooded site Tuesday night and no positive identification has been made of either the plane or the two missing occupants, Leland and Sharon Bowman of Marion, Mont., said Barbara LaBoe, a Washington state Transportation Department spokesman for the plane search.

Efforts to reach the site will resume today, LaBoe said. Search officials will assess whether air crews can be used and also will coordinate ground crew searches with the Skagit County sheriff’s office.

Autumn Veatch has said the Bowmans, her stepgrandparents, did not survive the Saturday crash.

The plane piloted by Leland Bowman was bringing her home from a visit.

The teen was released Tuesday evening from Three Rivers Hospital in Brewster.

In her hometown of Bellingham, Wash., family friends gathered Tuesday night in anticipation of a happy homecoming, bringing balloons and flowers to the apartment of the teen’s father, David Veatch.

“We just want to show her and her family that we care and we love her,” said one friend, Amber Shockey. She added Veatch had said “she was happy to be coming home.”

The teen left the burning wreckage of the small plane and did what she could: She headed down the steep slope, following a creek to a river. She spent a night on a sand bar, where she felt safer.