Sheriff’s Office releases Down East plane crash passengers

The Carteret County Sheriff’s Office has released the names of the passengers who were aboard the plane that went down near Drum Inlet on Sunday, Feb. 13, along the Cape Lookout National Seashore.

A total of eight people were on board the Pilatus PC-12 aircraft, including six Carteret County residents, as well as the pilot and the pilot’s adult son of Pitt County. The group was returning from a hunting trip in Hyde County and was scheduled to return to Beaufort, N.C.

The passengers are as follows:

• Ernest Durwood Rawls, 67, Greenville, NC
• Pilot Jeffrey Worthington Rawls, 28, Greenville, NC
• Stephanie Ann McInnis Fulcher, 42, Sea Level, NC
• Jonathan Kole McInnis, 15, Sea Level, NC
• Douglas Hunter Parks, 45, Sea Level, NC
• Noah Lee Styron, 15, Cedar Island, NC
• Michael Daily Shepard, 15, Atlantic, NC
• Jacob Nolan Taylor, 16, Atlantic, NC

Watchstanders at the Coast Guard Sector North Carolina command center received a report of a possible downed aircraft from an air traffic controller at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point at about 2:00 p.m on Sunday, stating that “the aircraft was seen behaving erratically on radar, and then disappeared from the radar screen.”

A Coast Guard Station Fort Macon Motor Lifeboat crew was launched on Sunday along with a Coast Guard Station Hatteras Inlet Response Boat-Small boat crew. Also involved in the search are an MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter aircrew from Air Station Elizabeth City, the Coast Guard Cutter Rollin Fritc, National Park Service beach crews, Towboat U.S., the Carteret County Sheriffs Office, and the Down East Fire Department.

Carteret County Sheriff Asa Buck that the various agencies were working three distinct debris fields in the ocean that had drifted roughly 10 to 15 miles offshore. The main body of the aircraft has not been found as of Tuesday afternoon, but one body was recovered on Sunday during the multiple-day search efforts.

Hyde County Schools have announced they will honor the memory of the victims of the crash during school on Thursday and Friday, stating that “All of our schools, Mattamuskeet Elementary School, Mattamuskeet Early College High School, and Ocracoke School, will be showing support to East Carteret High School for their loss (as other schools have already planned) by wearing Mariner’s colors, Blue and Yellow this Thursday (Feb 17th) and wearing Cammo on Friday (Feb 18th).”

The cause of the plane crash is still unknown. The National Transportation Safety Board is in charge of the investigation.