Carbon entrepreneur loses life in Colorado airplane crash

By RICHARD SHAW Publisher

An airplane crash in Colorado killed a well known Carbon County man on Tuesday.
Mike Loveless was killed when the Cessna 182 he was piloting crashed in the Holy Cross Wilderness area near Lake Josephine.
In a 2 p.m. (MDT) Wednesday press release the Eagle County Sheriffs Department reported that the aircraft had been located by a National Guard Helicopter about one tenth of a mile east of the lake. The location of that lake is about eight miles east-northeast of Thomasville and about 40 miles east of Basalt.
Loveless took off from Rocky Mountain Metro Airport in Jefferson County, Colo. on Tuesday at about 2:30 p.m. and his plane fell off of radar screens about an hour later. Once it was determined the plane was missing, search parties on the ground and in the air began to look for the aircraft.
According to the Aspen Times the ground search had been called off just after midday on Wednesday, apparently because of poor weather. But the sheriffs department said in a later release that volunteers from the Vail Mountain Rescue Group and Western Eagle County Search and Rescue were assisting with ground operations.
Reports from the National Guard spotters said that they considered the crash “unsurvivable” at the time they spotted the downed aircraft.
According to the release, Loveless was the only one on board the plane. While the Eagle County Sheriff’s office would not confirm who the pilot was, son Spencer Loveless confirmed the planes operator was his father late Wednesday afternoon.
The website vaildaily.com said that the area where the plane crashed is a wilderness area, that it is steep and presently covered with about 18 inches of snow.
Loveless was known for his entrepreneurial spirit. He started Loveless Ash in 1988 and along with his wife Colleen, grew the business from manufacturing a single vacuum machine that could remove hot coals from a fireplace or stove to a multi-product business that is one of the shining spots in eastern Utah’s home grown economy.