HONOLULU -- Recovery crews airlifted the bodies from the wreckage of a missing Big Island tour plane shortly after one of the company's helicopter pilot spotted the plane at 5:30 a.m. Sunday.

The Coast Guard covered more than 10,000 square miles before suspending its search late Thursday, while others kept looking both in the air and on the ground.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane crashed in a mountainous area near Pahala killing all of its occupants. Recovery crews air lifted the bodies from the wreckage.

"It's fairly broken up," National Transportation Safety Board Senior Air Safety Investigator Jim Struhsaker said. "At this point I've been told there's been no fire."

The pilot was identified as 40-year-old pilot Katsuhiro Takahashi, of Kona. He was Island Hopper's chief pilot and chief flight instructor for Hawaii Flight Academy.

The Japanese Consulate identified the two passengers as 53-year-old Nobuhiro Suzuki and his 56-year-old wife Masako Suzuki of Chiba Prefecture, east of Tokyo, Japan.

Hawaii County had two helicopters doing aerial searches, plus rescue crews searching forest areas on the ground, looking for any sign of the single engine Cessna that went missing Tuesday.

It left the Kona Airport for a tour of the Volcanoes area and was last seen over the park at 12:45 p.m. They followed the plane's flight path the FAA said.

Since late Tuesday, the Coast Guard, Big Island Fire Department, Civil Air Patrol, tour companies and fight schools scoured the area by air and on foot.

"It's a very unfortunate event that occurred. And we were actually quite lucky to even find the aircraft because of the vegetation and trees in that vicinity. It was pretty difficult," Struhsaker said.

A group of hikers may have heard the plane right before the crash, NTSB investigators said.

"They were within a mile, and the one head of the crew heard the engine and then heard it suddenly stop," Struhsaker said.

Additional investigators will arrive from the engine and air frame manufacturer to try to figure out what happened, officials said.

"In the next few days we'll make arrangements to have the wreckage lifted out of the forest up there and it will be taken either to Hilo or to Kona," Struhsaker said. "We'll do a layout of the aircraft and do an in depth examination of it."

Island Hoppers released a statement late Sunday afternoon, saying the company was saddened to learn there were no survivors. The statement said Takahashi was universally respected and loved.

A remembrance ceremony will be scheduled at a later date, officials said.