Names released of 2 men killed in Columbia River plane crash in Tri-Cities
The men who died Wednesday in an airplane crash into the Columbia River in the Tri-Cities were friends from Sonoma, Calif., flying to an event in Idaho.
The pilot was Randy J. Peterson, 64, and his passenger was Eric Wayne Houston, 50, said Franklin County Coroner Curtis McGary.
They had left Nampa River, Calif., on Wednesday to fly to Priest Lake, where a gathering of seaplanes was planned.
Peterson is a partner at Peterson Motorsports of Sonoma, and has been restoring racecars, from 1920s Formula One cars to 1970s stock cars, for more than two decades, according to the company’s online information.
He also has raced vintage cars for two decades, including 1960s Corvettes and 1970s stock cars.
An autopsy is planned Friday in Spokane, McGary said.
Peterson and Houston were flying in a 1949 single-engine Cessna with pontoons that flew west at a low altitude over the cable bridge about 2:30 p.m.
It dropped altitude suddenly as it approached a high-tension power line crossing the river from Pasco to Kennewick just west of the bridge as if it was trying to avoid the line, according to witnesses.
The plane hit and snapped the bottom line crossing the river and fell into the water, where it floated upside down and was carried with the current beneath the cable bridge toward the railroad bridge.
Boaters, jet ski riders and a person on shore who went into the river, tried to get the men out of the plane, but without success. Police boat crews hooked the plane and pulled it closed to shore and kept it from drift farther downstream.
A Lampson crane was used to lift the wreckage from the river and recover the bodies.
The crash caused a power outage in much of Kennewick and part of Pasco, and the snapped power line on the Pasco side of the river sparked a small grass fire.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
This story was originally published June 25, 2026 at 10:52 AM.