ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Searchers on Monday found four people dead in a sightseeing airplane carrying Polish tourists in Alaska’s Denali National Park — a day and a half after thick clouds hampered the response to distress calls.

Another person is missing and presumed dead after the crash Saturday evening on a mountain ridge about 14 miles (23 kilometers) southwest of Denali, North America’s tallest mountain. After going down, the pilot, identified Monday as Craig Layson, reported by satellite phone that passengers suffered injuries, but the connection failed before he could give details.

The airplane was stocked with sleeping bags, a stove and food, giving hope that survivors would be found despite terrain described by the National Park Service as “extremely steep and a mix of near-vertical rock, ice and snow.”

Low-lying clouds and rainy conditions prevented crews from spotting the wreckage until a break in the clouds Monday allowed a helicopter to reach the crash site.

A park service ranger was lowered down on a line from the copter and dug through snow that had filled the aircraft to find the bodies of four people. There were no footprints or other disturbances in the snow that would have indicated anyone made it out of the plane, the park service said.

The ranger was pulled out after confirming the deaths. A park service spokeswoman said she could not comment on recovery plans.

“We’re working that out right now,” Katherine Belcher said.

The plane operated by K2 Aviation had taken off Saturday evening with Layson and four passengers from Poland for a tour of Kahiltna Glacier, the jumping off point for climbers attempting to climb Denali.

It crashed around near the top of 10,900-foot (3,300-meter) Thunder Mountain, which rises above the glacier and is described by the park service as more of a milelong ridge than a mountain.

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