Investigators are searching through the wreckage of a small plane that crashed Thursday night in Madison County.

The plane was due in Winchester Thursday but it never arrived. The Federal Aviation Administration reportedly lost contact with the pilot seven miles from Luray.

State and local officials searched until 3 a.m. Investigators resumed their search later Friday morning, eventually finding the plane in Madison County.

Search crews recovered two bodies from the crash site. They say they are still looking for a third person. It took the work of several agencies to find the single engine plane.

Crews from Madison and Spotsylvania sheriffs' offices, state police, and the Civil Air Patrol worked together to find the missing plane.

Madison County Sheriff Erik Weaver says, "He left from somewhere in North Carolina. He did not make his destination to Winchester. Someone made a call and also I understand either a commercial plane went over and also they picked up a signal from a satellite. So that's how we got involved, through the Richmond EOC. They contacted our office."

By three o'clock in the morning, search crews were tackling the tough terrain of the mountains in the area.

"It was a ground crew. We had ATV's, four wheel drive. We also had horseback search and rescue on scene. We had a fixed wing plane out early this morning, trying to locate the beacon and due to the rough terrain, it was unable to locate it," says Weaver.

It was around noon that search crews found a badly burned plane on Fork Mountain in Madison County.

"If you figure three square miles in the mountains, heavy rock, as you know this is also a copperhead, snake infested, bears; so we also had to look out for that, so I think we had a great success within four hours," says Weaver.

Now the operation goes from search and rescue to recovery. The Madison Sheriff's Department will stay on the scene until recovery crews clear it, and notify next of kin. Investigators do not know the cause of the crash at this time.